THE DISCOVERY AND INTEGRATION OF EVIL IN THE FICTION OF JOSEPH CONRAD ANDHERMANN HESSE

Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Bruecher, Werner, 1927-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 11/10/2021 14:25:27

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/287819 72-9806

BRUECHER, Werner, 1927- THE DISCOVERY AND INTEGRATION OF EVIL IN THE FICTION OF JOSEPH CONRAD AND HERMANN HESSE.

The University of Arizona, Ph.D. , 1972 Language and Literature, modern

University Microfilms, A XEROX Company , Ann Arbor, Michigan

•vr trac°* MTn-poPTT.MPn •RYAnTT.Y AS RECEIVED THE DISCOVERY AND INTEGRATION OF EVIL IN THE FICTION OF JOSEPH CONRAD AND HERMANN HESSE

by Werner Brueeher

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

1972 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

GRADUATE COLLEGE

I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my

direction by Werner Bruecher

entitled The Discovery and Integration of Evil in the

Fiction of Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse

be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Dissertation Director Date

After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its^approval and recommend its acceptance:*

L

J/?/?/ 7 nh\

f/?/-?/

"This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. PLEASE NOTE:

Some Pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allow­ able without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manu­ script in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other'instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

SIGNED: PREFACE

I have been interested in the writings of Joseph Conrad for many years, not only because I find them as intriguing and artistically satisfying as do many of his readers, but also because they reflect the struggle for a new integration by a fellow-expatriate which has much personal significance to me. My interest in Hermann Hesse is of more recent origin and stems partly from an attempt to familiarize myself with the thought of major writers whose works were suppressed during my formative years in Germany. When I first read Demian and Steppenwolf, Hesse's most popular novels in the United States today, I was impressed by the unexpected similarity of thematic develop­ ment and artistic method between these novels and some comparable works by Conrad, particularly Lord Jim and "Heart of Darkness." This correspondence between writings of authors so outwardly different seemed particularly sur­ prising to me because it reflected an essential identity of discoveries these men had made about human nature and uni­ versalized in their fiction. I was also impressed by the fact that Conrad seemed far ahead of his time in that he gave artistic expression to very nearly the same

iii psychological insights which Hesse, who wrote under the direct influence of Jungian theories, expressed several decades later. My initial comparison of works by Conrad and Hesse later developed into the desire to examine and compare other representative writings of both authors more systematically and in greater depth. This desire, in turn, finds its final expression in this dissertation. My interest in this comparative study of works by Conrad and Hesse is primarily psychological, even though socio-economic and philosophical considerations become increasingly important during the latter half of this dissertation. This is mostly due to the fact that the main emphasis here is on character development, i. e., on trac­ ing the increasing self-awareness and ability to deal with reality by fictional personae of both authors approximately in the order in which they normally occur in life. Thereby it also becomes apparent how closely the agony of soul- searching v/hich both men expressed in their writings reflects the intellectual history of Europe and, to some extent, of the entire Western World. All this does not mean that the artistic problems each writer faces in his effort to express particularly subjective experiences have been ignored. Such matters as the increasing stylistic intricacy in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse to match the complexity of the inner explorations, their similar use of V the ironic method, and finally their return to a simpler, more classical view of life and mode of expressic l have been noted "but subordinated to the main theme. In quoting from Conrad I have used the Canterbury Edition of his complete works (Neiv York, 1924); the basis for all extracts from the writings of Hesse is his Gesammelte Schrlften (Prankfurt/M., 1957), which are referred to by volume number since no individual titles are given. Due to the bilingual nature of this dissertation and the frequent use of German terminology, extended quotations in German have not been underlined. All translations are my own and are intended to convey Hesse's actual, not simply literal, meaning. Prom the large number of critical interpretations and commentaries now available on the works of Conrad and Hesse, I selected only those which seemed relevant and available at various university libraries in the United States, primarily those of The University of Arizona, The University of Oregon, and Portland State University. A number of these secondary references have been cited; many others have influenced the content of this dissertation in a general way, as did several visits to Europe and espe­ cially the most recent one to various locations which are of consequence to Hesse's work, such as the cloister and theological training school at Haulbronn, in Western vi

Germany, and-the southern Swiss village of Montagnola, where he spent his most productive years. Finally, I wish to thank my committee, Dr. Richard I. Smyer and Dr. Carl F. Keppler of the English Department, and Dr. Jean R. Beck and Dr. David J. Woloshin of the German Department of The University of Arizona for their help. But I am especially grateful to Dr. L. D. Clark, ny dissertation advisor, and to my wife Ruth, my patient typist, without whose help and encouragement this disserta­ tion would not have been possible. TABLE OP CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT viii I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH EVIL IN THE OUTER V/ORLD. 9 III. THE EXPLORATION OF EVIL WITHIN 57 IV. THE QUEST FOR WHOLENESS BEYOND EVIL 124 V. CONCLUSION 174 WORKS CITED 182

vii ABSTRACT

This comparative study 'traces the process of increasing self-awareness and understanding of the world by Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse, as it finds artistic expression in a number of representative writings which are so arranged that they can be read as consecutive install­ ments in their quest for reality and truth in a world in which accepted systems of social, religious and philosophi­ cal order have broken down. The increasing maturity of Conradian and Hessean characters is portrayed in four phases and is judged by their expanding awareness of evil and by their changing reaction to it. The young or naive conceive of evil as clearly definable malevolence confronting them as aspects of the outer world. Some of them, generally minor charac­ ters or protagonists in the early fiction of both authors, try to ignore evil altogether or use it to foster their romantic misconceptions of themselves. Others cope with it according to time-honored codes and in the line of duty. Still other innocents are destroyed in their confrontations with external depravity, which attacks them too suddenly or which they are too weak to resist.

viii ix

Generally, however, life forces upon Conradian and Hessean characters discordant experience which aims at leading them to an increasing understanding of the truth about human nature and the world. Those who refuse to be educated or who lack restraint deteriorate and bring mis­ fortune upon others, but those who accept the challenge of life experience psychological growth. In this latter cate­ gory belong the most representative characters of both authors. They first come to suspect that not all human calamity can be explained by blaming their environment and that evil is inherent in their own psyches as well as in the outer world; from then on their road to truth leads

clearly inward. Conrad's Lord Jim and Hesse's Emil Sinclair in Demian lose their innocence largely through the painful realization of their own ethical duality and set out to compensate for their loss by finding a new self-concept in agreement with pre-conceived ideals. Both achieve only a conditional success. Jim fails when he is defeated by Brown, a figure from the deep psyche which he does not understand. Bnil achieves his goal through a process of psychological integration which Hesse patterned after the

Jungian process of individuation but in which he glosses over much unexplored depth. X

The regions of the deep psyche not explored in Lord Jim and Demian are then scrutinized in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and Hesse's Steppenwolf. The descent within of the authors' personae, Marlow and Haller, is depicted as being closely analogous to archetypal journeys from which classical heroes return chastised and with an altered per­ spective on life. While Conrad and Hesse here, as else­ where, display considerable differences in fictional settings and artistic methods, their protagonists derive from the painful confrontations with constituents of their deep psyches an almost identical understanding of the wild and lawless core as well as the essentially schizoid condi­ tion of the human psyche. This knowledge imposes upon them a new perspective on life which drastically alters their relations with their fellow men. Both Conrad and Hesse finally agree that psycho­ logical wholeness is man's only effective antidote to per­ petual external chaos and internal dissociation. It is achieved through the integration of all aspects of life, especially those which are considered evil by traditional standards and rejected. This process finds its final formulation by Conrad in "The Secret Sharer" and The Shadow Line, and by Hesse in The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game. The protagonists of these four works come to terms with evil by accepting it as a necessary dynamic xi principle of life and transcend it by becoming aware in a new dimension of consciousness. They are finally differ­ entiated from their fellow men in that they consciously and voluntarily accept ethical responsibility and an existen­ tial commitment to the world. However, while Conrad depicts the achievement of transcendence through the integration of evil as having only individual significance, Hesse considers it a moral obligation which aids the development of collective man. It is a prerequisite for Knecht, who is at least poten­ tially a prototype of a new humanity. CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The object of this dissertation is to show how Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse, completely independent of each other and in spite of their diverse backgrounds, came to very nearly the same conclusions about modern man's encounter with reality in a world where accepted systems of social, religious and philosophical order have broken down. Both Conrad and Hesse recognized clearly that many of the ideals which constitute the core of Western Civili­ zation have proved a complete disappointment of human hopes because they have failed to bring economic security and lasting peace, and because they have not provided generally accepted solutions to man's most basic metaphysical and social problems. Conrad, of Polish aristocratic lineage and brought up in times of nationalistic uprisings against Czarist Russian suppression, became aware at an early age of the largely negative results of political activity.

Hesse, the product of an ultra-conservative Protestant missionary family, suffered even as a child from the narrow­ ness and excesses of religious fundamentalism. In both men the repressive influence of their respective environments eventually caused overt rebellion against all external

1 2 forces which hinder the free development and self-expression of the individual. For the nominally Catholic Conrad this came to include the rejection of institutionalized churches and their dogma, while the once loyal German Hesse even­ tually refused allegiance to all restrictive military and political organizations. After detaching themselves from many of the tradi­ tional beliefs of their respective cultures, Conrad and Hesse began in their writings a quest for ideal values by which they expose the intolerable public ignorance of the religious, political, socio-economic and psychological realities on which traditional values rest and on which they blame many human ills. In their examination of the human predicament in the absence of valid external norms, Conrad and Hesse argue directly or exemplify through the experiences of their fictional characters that man can avoid many painful per­ sonal experiences, break the vicious cycle of periodically recurring historical calamities for which he has no one but himself to blame, and improve his general condition only if he is willing to face his inner nature for what it is and to combat evil at its source, namely within himself. Since the history of Western Civilization is interpreted by both authors as almost a conspiracy to keep man relatively unaware of the ambiguities of his existence and thus a tractable instrument of religious, political, social and economic organizations, little help can be expected from without. The decision to move toward a fuller conscious­ ness must therefore necessarily be an individual one; and since this entails the re-evaluation of the entire system of personal and cultural norms according to which given characters have lived, it must be considered a definite moral choice. The struggle for greater awareness includes the active confrontation and psychological integration of all aspects of life, especially those which were considered evil by traditional standards and rejected. It is a con­ frontation with experience, an external as well as an internal struggle often leading to self-division, isolation and suffering. In these confrontations the sea and exotic places serve Conrad mainly as the settings in which he investigates the nature of man, while Hesse generally centers his action in European cities but also includes settings of the East. The novels of both authors are in many ways installments of a quest for self-knowledge and a consciousness sufficiently expanded to permit adjustment to the relativity and reversibility of human ethical standards as well as the increasing realization of their main pro­ tagonists that in order to find meaning they must live with the fact that they are hurled back upon themselves as sole authorities. 4 One of the main elements which is used here as a basis for the comparison of the fiction of Conrad and Hesse is their preoccupation with evil, a concept which both authors no longer consider "as an absolute value in the traditional sense but rather as a dynamic principle of life which must be thoroughly understood by modern man if he is to achieve psychological wholeness and integrity. The definition of the term "evil" as used in this dissertation, then, is flexible and changes in accordance with the increasing self-awareness of Conradian and Hessean characters as well as with their recognition of the rela­ tionship between the moral development of individuals com­ posing a given society and the ethics embodied in its institutions. The most innocent among Hessean and Conrad­ ian characters see evil as something ill-defined and malevolent inherent in the universe and in other men; but as they mature they increasingly perceive it as a basic constituent of human nature in general, including their own. This realization generally leads to various individual con­ frontations and crises which break or thwart some protag­ onists but prod others to attempt to reform themselves, and thereafter their outward environment. Whenever such reforms are successful, evil becomes good and functions as an agent of personal growth and social improvement. Ulti­ mately, however, both Conrad and Hesse consider as evil 5 everything that opposes or hinders the full development of man. They also condemn the refusal of given protagonists to accept the challenge of life and use evil as an instru­ ment for personal growth, the failure to face reality or to mature and to accept commitments and ethical responsibility. To show the course of thematic development in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse, certain of their key works have been selected and juxtaposed while others of their writings as well as pertinent works of other authors have been used to illustrate and clarify given points. This comparison reveals a remarkable similarity in the artistic development of both authors in spite of the fact that Hesse proceeds in fairly definite stages toward his major novel, The Glass Bead Game, at the end of his career, while Conrad, who maintained from the beginning a more constant rate of maturation, apparently exhausted his creative energy and returned to the reworking of old materials in a number of minor works during his last years. Since Conrad and Hesse believe that peace and order cannot be imposed upon the world until man has first learned to know himself and to establish harmony in his inner domain, it is hardly surprising that they express strong disapproval especially of the orthodox church and the totalitarian state. Both authors point out that exces­ sive religious or political conservatism either deliberately 6 or inadvertently prevents the expansion of man's ethical consciousness by propounding values which, in their tradi­ tional meaning and form, are no longer adequate for living under present conditions. However, while Hesse's rejection and transcendence of orthodox religion comprises a major theme in his later work, Conrad seems extremely reluctant to express his views on orthodox Christianity in his fiction. They can, of course, be deduced from the ironic tone with which he depicts his occasional fundamentalists, such as

Podmore, the narrow-minded Bible-quoting cook in The Nigger of The Narcissus, or by the rebuke which Captain Whalley's conception of an anthropomorphic god receives in "The End of the Tether." But the reluctance Conrad shows to discussing religion in his fiction is certainly absent in his private correspondence, where he is so explicitly antagonistic to organized religion that he has been called "... one of the most out-spoken fin-de-siecle English agnostics. . .

1. Avron Fleishman, Conrad's Politics (Baltimore, Md., 1967), p. 26. This judgment seems justified in light of statements such as the one made in a letter to Edward Garnett related in his Letters from Joseph Conrad, 1895- 192^ (Indianapolis, 192b), p. 185, in which Conrad declares: "Prom the age of fourteen, I disliked the Christian reli­ gion, its doctrines, ceremonies, and festivals. The most galling feature is that nobody—not even a bishop of them— believes in it. ... In another letter to Edward Garnett, Ibid., p. 245, Conrad describes institutionalized Christi­ anity as the outgrowth of an "absurd Oriental fable" that in spite of its virtues, "... has lent itself with amaz­ ing facility to cruel distortions and is the only religion which, with its impossible standards, has brought an infin­ ity of anguish to innumerable souls--on this earth." 7 And whereas Conrad does not hesitate to express his criticism of unduly repressive, corrupt or retardatory socio-political institutions and systems in his major works, Hesse seems extremely reluctant to express his often quite similar views on the same subjects in his fiction. However, Hesse confronts the political and social issues of his day in a number of essays, letters, appeals and ad- p dresses to the public or to leading personalities. Since Conrad's attitude toward religious and Hesse's attitude toward socio-political themes are not developed in their major fiction, they will not be elaborated on in this dis­ sertation. Another main element which here serves as the final basis for the comparison of a number of fictional works by Conrad and Hesse is the tendency of both authors to probe into the depth of the human personality in their endeavor

2. These diverse writings are, of course, con­ tained in various volumes of Hesse's Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt/M., 1957). But the most important of them have been published separately as Hermann Hesse, Krieg und Frieden fFrankfurt/M., 1965). In many of these "politische Aufsatze1 (political essays), as they are referred to, Hesse expresses views which are essentially identical to those which comprise the gist of Conrad's social and polit­ ical commentary. In spite of their brevity such essays as "0 Freunde, nicht diese Tone" (Oh friends, do not speak this way), "An einen Staatsminister" (To a Secretary of State), "Soil Friede Werden?" (Shall There be Peace?), or "Du Sollst Nicht Toten" (Thou Shalt Not Kill), aim as much at exposing and denouncing man's open or rationalized ag­ gressiveness, cruelty., greed, and moral blindness as do such Conradian works as "An Outpost of Progress," "Heart of Dark- ness," The Secret Agent, Nostromo or Under Western Eyes. to discover the roots of man's contradictory behavior. In this quest Conrad, like Henry James, whose follower he is often considered to be, disclaims all influence of Freud and his associates, even though what he learned about human nature and expresses in his writings is very much in agree­ ment with psychoanalytical theory.3 Hesse, on the other hand, whose early romantic attitude toward life was shat­ tered mainly by the brutalities of World War I, underwent psychoanalysis in 1916-17 and clearly shows his indebted­ ness to Freudian and especially Jungian theory in the 4 novels he wrote after that time.

3. Morton Dauwen Zabel, "Conrad In His Age," The New Republic, Nov. 16, 19^2, pp. 567-563. 4. Theodore Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse (Princeton, N. J., 1965), pp. 9-11• CHAPTER II

FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH EVIL IN THE OUTER WORLD

The early protagonists of Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse are at first innocents of various age groups who judge life according to its surface appearances only. They feel relatively secure and confident as long as they do not sense the precarious position of man in relation to his natural environment, the essential inadequacy of the meta­ physical systems and socio-political Institutions which govern their lives, and the inherent ethical duality of human nature. Life is not yet examined at this stage but merely lived expectantly and from moment to moment. Such moral concepts as good and evil are as yet assumed to be easily definable absolute values according to which experi­ ence and other men can be divided into clearcut categories. Joseph Conrad's innocents at this stage of limited awareness are generally described as untested heroes with

Seemingly unlimited physical vitality and zest for life. Most of their behavior is simply nonreflective exuberance; for whatever struggles they may confront seem to them adventures into which they can throw themselves, as Morton Dauwen Zabel puts it, "... with all the impulsive force

9 10

of their illusion, their pride, their idealism, their desire for fame and power, their confidence that Chance is a friend and Fortune a guide who will lead them to a prom­

ised goal of happiness or success, wealth or authority."1 Perhaps the most representative of Conrad's inno­ cent, untested heroes is young Marlow in "Youth." This story is related by Marlow himself, later in life when he is a mature seaman who nostalgically but with consistent irony recounts his adventures as a young second mate aboard the old bark, Judea, while it was carrying coal from a northern English port to Bangkok. In this revealing self- portrait Marlow reappraises not only his ignorance as a young man, but also his motives. He makes it clear that he v/as not so much motivated by dedication to seamanship as he was urged on by sheer egotism to search'for romantic adventures and heroic deeds, a drive which Thomas Moser thinks may well represent the desire to be absolved from

the necessity to act responsibly and from having to face O the problems of life altogether. That Marlow in his disenchanted maturity views youth generally with irony, and here especially his younger

self, is hardly surprising. To begin with, young Marlow

1. Morton Dauwen Zabel, ed., The Portable Conrad (New York, 1959)* P. 19. 2. Thomas Moser, Joseph Conrad: Achievement and Decline (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 46-47. 11 completely Ignores the fact that the Judea is essentially unseaworthy and carries a dangerous cargo, that mishaps and leaks have twice delayed her departure from England, and that before her final sailing even the rats have left the ship, so that the older narrator can now only comment with resignation: Oh youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it'. To me she was not an old rattle­ trap ... to me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her . . . Pass the bottle'.3 Other ironical depictions of thoughtless exuberance which illustrate further the state of mind of young Marlow are his.leap into the ship's hold to show the older crew how to put out the fire at the bottom of the cargo of coal, a venture from which he has to be rescued; his saying little more than "This is great" after the exploding coal h gas demolishes the ship's deck; and his disregard of the captain's orders after the Judea sinks, when he turns the rescue operation into a sailing contest. Joseph Conrad's story "Youth," then, is a portrait of high-spirited naivete, a display of seemingly unlimited animal vitality, of untroubled romantic distortion of

3. Joseph Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 12. All references to writings of Joseph Conrad are taken from The Canterbury Edition of his complete works (New York, 1924) and are cited as above. 4. Ibid., p. 26. 12 reality and, at any rate, Joseph Conrad's only depiction of 15 a character who as yet learns nothing from experience.-' The protagonists of Hermann Hesse who are permitted to enjoy a state of innocence comparable to that of young Marlow in Joseph Conrad's "Youth" are generally not robust extroverts trying to triumph over nature and to prove them­ selves more capable than other men. They are, instead, young, sensitive esthetes who often still cherish the pro­ tective environment of their parents' homes and who, rather than throwing themselves blindly at the problems of exist­ ence, have a tendency to evade, to compromise, and to withdraw. A typical Hessean character who illustrates this tendency well is the first-person narrator of the tale "Schon ist die Jugend." Having established himself abroad, this young man returns for a prolonged visit to his paren­ tal home in a small mountain town in southern Germany and is smoothly reabsorbed into the prevailing peaceful atmos­ phere. But Hesse's protagonist is already somewhat more conscious than young Marlow in "Youth" of the fact that the harmonious and seemingly unproblematical existence of his family as a group is purchased at a price, the same price that Conrad's seamen must pay for having order aboard ship,

5. An especially apt description of young Marlow's mind is given by Walter P. Wright, Romance and Tragedy in Joseph Conrad (Lincoln, Neb., 19^9)^ pp. 11-12. 13 namely, subordination. In Hesse's story this means specif­ ically subjection to the strict daily routine of the narra­ tor's home, to the arbitrary decisions of his father as the head of the household, and a more or less unquestioning acceptance of traditional beliefs and customs. While the exuberant Marlow in "Youth" unwittingly challenges some basic rules aboard the Judea, Hesse's more sensitive narra­ tor in "Schon ist die Jugend" shows himself willing to com­ promise and deliberately curbs his actions and expressions to preserve domestic peace. As a result, such potentially troublesome situations as the questioning of the protago­ nist by his pious mother about his recent rejection of religious beliefs are glossed over when the narrator treats the matter lightly and when his mother responds tolerantly . . . allmahlich wirst du selber erfahren, dass es ohne Glauben im Leben nicht geht. Denn das Wissen taugt ja nichts. Jeden Tag kommfc es vor, dass jemand, den man genau zu kennen glaubte, etwas tut, was einem zeigt, dass es mit dem Kennen und Gewiss- wissen nichts war. Und doch braucht der Mensch ein Vertrauen und eine Sicherheit. Und da ist es immer besser, zum Heiland zu gehen als zu einem Professor oder zum Bismarck oder zu sonst jemand.6 (. . . gradually you will see for yourself that it is not possible to go on in life with­ out faith, for knowledge is worthless. It happens every day that someone whom we think we know well does something which indicates that our knowing and being sure deluded us. And yet man needs trust and security. There­ fore it is better to turn to Christ than to go to a professor, or to Bismarck, or to someone else.)

6. Hermann Hesse, Gesammelte Schrlften, I, 754-755. 14

There is no indication that the Hessean protagonist agrees with his mother's view, but he respects it and remains silent. He also accepts the ten o'clock curfew his father has imposed on the household without overt objection but sidesteps it by sitting up in his room reading and enjoying some beer, and sometimes he quietly slips away through a side door. His father, in turn, ignores such trespasses and thereby not only insures the status quo in family relations, but also forestalls the possibility of a permanent estrangement between himself and his maturing son. An innocent in the fiction of Hermann Hesse who experiences a first glimpse of the potentially troublesome constituents of human nature which the narrator of "Schon ist die Jugend" suspected and circumvented is the hero of Peter Camenzind, the impressionistic novel which in 1904 established Hermann Hesse in the German-speaking countries of Europe as a celebrated writer."'' Peter Camenzind, a

Q typical Hessean Bergdorfler, lives at first an idyllic life as a goatherd in the small village of Nimikon. Since his parents have little to give him by way of formal

7. Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse and his Critics (New York, 1966), p. 7. 8. A Bergdorfler is an inhabitant of a small moun­ tain village. The term implies lack of exposure to life, poverty and cultural deprivation generally; but in Hesse it does not have the negative connotation of the Americanism "hillbilly." education, he attempts to learn from nature as best he can and remains as unperturbed by its destructive potentiality as Marlow in "Youth." A typical untested hero, Peter is initially so completely trustful of life's inherent good­ ness and of nature's ability to teach him all he needs to know that he proudly proclaims: Berge, See, Sturm und Sonne waren meine Freunde, erzahlten mir und erzogen mich und waren mir lange Zeit lieber und bekannter als irgend Menschen und Menschenschicksale. Meine Lieblinge aber . . . waren die Wolken.9 (Mountains, lake, storm and sun were my friends, communicated with me and brought me up, and for a long time were dearer and better known to me than any men and human fates. My favorites, however, . . . were the clouds.) Yet, as Joseph Conrad's Marlow is not permitted by life to remain the innocent which he portrays himself to be in "Youth,and as the protagonist of Hesse's "Schon ist die Jugend" finally has to leave the sanctuary of his parents' home and face life, eventually Peter Camenzind also ventures forth from his mountain serenity to absorb experience in the world. Having received some initial formal education from Catholic priests, he moves to a city

9. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, I, 229. 10. M. C. Bradbrook, in Joseph Conrad: Poland's English Genius (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), p. 25, suggests that in Conrad the readiness to consider any calamity in life simply as an adventure rarely survives age twenty- five. 16

where he attends a Gymnasium (a college preparatory school) and later studies on scholarships at a university. There­ after he makes a living as a journalist and writer of short stories. However, his expectations in the world are not fulfilled and his experiences with people prove generally disenchanting; especially galling are his encounters with two girls, Rosi Girtanner and Elisabeth LaRoche. All in all, after a short exposure to life as it is lived by most people, Peter Camenzind recognizes the essential hollowness of most social activity and decides to spare himself further disappointments by returning to Nimikon, where he cares for others in need and contemplates writing a book on the possibility of finding transcendence through identifi­ cation with nature. Even though Peter Camenzind was popular after its publication, modern critics tend to find fault with it because it evades involvement with the larger problems of life. Mark Boulby, for instance, considers the ending of the novel unconvincing because it imposes upon the pro­ tagonist an unnatural withdrawal from society, even though this corresponds to Hesse's temporary self-exile at Gaien- 11 hofen, Switzerland, before World War I. Other critics

slight the novel because it substitutes spiritualized love

11. Mark Boulby, Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art (Ithaca, N. Y., 1967), p. 3b. 17 for a deeper sense of humanity or because it is essentially static; some even go so far as to claim that it is little more than a long sermon in which Hesse presents a conglom­ erate of the notions of nature held by Goethe, Nietzsche 1 P and Rousseau. These criticisms seem justified but give by no means a complete picture, for the Peter Camenzind who returns to Nimikon is not the same Bergdorfler he was before he left home. His Schritt ins Leben (step into life), as Hugo Ball calls his wanderings, has led to a degree of social awareness and self-knowledge he probably would not have achieved had he stayed at home.^3 Like Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, he has become conscious of the inherent hypocrisy of much adult life, but he shows that he understands the need for compromise with reality better than Salinger's hero when he proclaims: Mit Erstaunen nahm ich wahr, dass der Mensch von der ilbrigen Natur sich vor allem durch eine schliipf- rige -Gallert von Luge unterscheidet, die ihn umgibt und schutzt. In Kurze beobachtete ich an alien meinen Bekannten dieselbe Erscheinung--das Ergebnis des Umstandes, dass jeder eine Person, eine klare Pigur vorzustellen genotigt wird, wahrend doch keiner sein eigenstes Wesen kennt. -Mit sonderbaren Gefuhlen stellte ich an mir selber dasselbe fest und -gab es nun auf, den Personen auf den Kern dringen zu wollen.14

12. Hugo Ball, Hermann Hesse: Sein Leben und Seln Werk (Prankfurt/M., 1956), p. 100. 13. Ibid., p. 102. 14. Hesse, Gesarnmelte Schriften, I, 331. 18

(I realized with amazement that man is dif­ ferentiated from nature especially by a slippery gelatine of lies which surrounds and protects him. Shortly thereafter I observed this phenomenon in all of my acquaintences--the result of the circum­ stances that everyone is supposed to pose as a person, a clearly delineated form, while actually no one knows his innermost being. With strange feelings I realized that this was true of myself also and con­ sequently gave up my attempts to lay bare each person's inner nature.) Peter Camenzind, then, has gone beyond the state of charmed innocence depicted in Conrad's "Youth" and Hesse's "Schon ist die Jugend." He has experienced enough of life to realize that humans, including himself, are imperfect beings; what he has learned about the dark aspects of human nature and existence in general proves enough to discourage him permanently from wanting to probe further. He has come to a conclusion about life reminiscent of that of Voltaire's Candide, who withdrew after many years of exposure to dis­ cordant experience to till his own garden. In the fiction of Hermann Hesse after Peter Camen- zind and of Joseph Conrad except for "Youth," virtually no representative character is permitted to exist without being forced to cope consciously with the often grim reali­ ties of existence, and very few minor characters (mainly some Castalians in Hesse's The Glass Bead Game who will be dealt with in Chapter III of this dissertation) are spared active involvement with evil, i. e., with the negative and destructive forces of life. To what degree various pro­ tagonists of both authors can profit from such experience depends, of course, on their sensitivity, their intelli­ gence, and on circumstances in general. It seems, however, that with the notable exception of Joseph Conrad's Marlow, who appears as narrator and observer in "Youth," Lord Jim, "Heart of Darkness," and Chance, the major figures of Hesse are more sensitive to experience and therefore more easily taught by life than those of Conrad. But both authors portray some characters who, due to various inherent limi­ tations, are in spite of all exposure virtually unteachable and thus remain in a state of innocence which may be con­ sidered unhealthy since it is due to lack of development. In the fiction of Conrad such types are generally courageous, loyal, but essentially unreflective seamen; Thomas Moser calls them "simple heroes" and lists among them Captain Mitchell of Nostromo, Captain Beard of "Youth," Captain MacWhirr of "Typhoon," the French lieuten­ ant of Lord Jim, and old Singleton of The Nigger of the Narcissus In the writings of Hesse, the characters who fall into this category are mainly his Burger (his "solid citi­ zens") whom he nearly always portrays as psychologically underdeveloped and too unconscious to profit much from

15. Moser, pp. 16-19. 20 experience or to realize the possibilities of evil within themselves. However, the most vivid portrait of a charac­ ter immune to experience in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse (and possibly in all English and German literature) is the paradoxical Captain MacWhirr, the protagonist of Joseph Conrad's "Typhoon." MacWhirr has been described as the epitome of the psychological myopic who suffers from ". . .an excess of the empirical, ..." from "... complete dependence on what he can actually see . . . accompanied by a lack of imagination great enough to isolate him from the common­ place world of people. . . Just how severe MacWhirr's limitations really are is perhaps best illustrated by a few pertinent passages from the story "Typhoon" itself. To begin with, MacWhirr takes the Nan Shan, the steamer which he commands, through the eye of a typhoon because he cannot foresee the conse­ quences of such folly and thinks of an evasive course only as a means of running up the coal bill for his employers. The effect the storm may have on the two hundred Chinese coolies in the ship's hold is, moreover, something MacWhirr simply does not consider. Nor can he understand the objec­ tion of the mate, Jukes, to transferring their British ship to the Siamese flag for the sake of expedience. This

l6. Paul L. Wiley, Conrad's Measure of Man (New York, 1956), p. 72. 21 particular incident is a masterpiece of Conradian irony and illustrates the working of MacWhirr's mind better than any other episode. After MacWhirr orders that the Siamese flag be hoisted in place of the Union Jack, Jukes protests, "Queer flag for a man to sail under, sir." MacWhirr is perplexed at first, and after matter-of-factly consulting the International Signal Code-book observes with annoyance, "There1s nothing amiss with that flag . , . length twice the breadth and the elephant exactly in the middle. I thought the people ashore would know how to make the local IT flag. Stands to reason. You were wrong, Jukes. . . ." ' Numerous similarly revealing passages as well as Conrad's persistently ironical tone in "Typhoon" make Captain MacWhirr's limitations painfully obvious; but in the total evaluation of this grotesque character, the para­ doxical fact must also be taken into consideration that during the actual typhoon he emerges as a figure of heroic stature thanks to whose primitive strength the crew of the Nan Shan survives. That a normal man, like Jukes, for instance, would have avoided getting into this predicament in the first place does not obviate the fact that MacWhirr could well be considered a measure of what is required of the average man when he is confronted with violently

17. Conrad, Typhoon and Other Stories, p. 10. 22 destructive forces, i. e., evil, with which the rational 1 R mind cannot readily cope. As mentioned before, protagonists characterized by the unconsciousness and stolidity of Captain MacWhirr appear in the fiction of Hermann Hesse often as the epitome of Burgerturn, especially as representatives of German small­ town bourgeoisie. Such characters rarely achieve any real significance and their lives could quite justly be compared to that of MacWhirr, which Joseph Conrad construes as a mere "... skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.11"''^ And even though, thanks to their inherent limitations, such men are gener­ ally spared undue consciousness of the possibilities of evil in themselves, it is precisely because they do not understand their own motives, the consequences of their actions, or the needs of others, that they cause much need­ less suffering. In the novel Unterm Rad (Under the Wheel), for example, the German school system is attacked by Hesse mainly because it is dominated by and reflects the

18. This observation by Wiley, pp. 72-73* seems valid and points out what is perhaps MacWhirr's only redeeming quality.

19. Conrad, Typhoon and Other Stories, p. 19. 23 mentality of such limited men. The education offered by schools under such direction is seen as restrictive to growth beyond the group level; it makes absolutely no pro­ vision for highly gifted, imaginative, or otherwise unusual students who do not fit into conventional molds and more often than not destroys them, or at least prevents the 20 development of their talents. The fate of Hans Giebenrath, the protagonist of Under the Wheel, and of his friend Hermann Heilner are specific examples of the crushing effect stolid education­ ists can have on unorthodox children. What makes the situ­ ation of Hans even more deplorable is that his own father, whom Ernst Rose calls ". . .a formidable representative of 21 a materialistic and stupid bourgeoisie . . . ," who could easily be visualized as a MacWhirr in charge of domestic affairs rather than of a ship, is perfectly in agreement with his son's tormentors. Hans' suffering begins.when Herr Giebenrath quite arbitrarily decides that his gifted, sensitive son is to attend the famous Klosterschule Maul- bronn to become a theologian. He and some of his friends

20. The alienating effect of the pre-World War I German school system and other institutions embodying the values of the bourgeoisie as it pertains to Under The Wheel and other works by Hesse is aptly summarized by Kurt J. Pickert, "The Development of the Outsider Concept in Hesse's Novels," Monatshefte, LII (April-May i960) 171-178. 21. Ernst Rose, Faith from the Abyss (New York, 1965), P. 31. 24 push and drill Hans to prepare him for the Landesexamen, even though the boy soon considers the drill sessions sheer torment. But he endures and passes the examination much to the gratification of his ostensibly selfless tutors, who in fact pushed Hans to further their own social ambitions. Later, at Maulbronn., Hans finds that the authori­ ties and teachers are just as unreasonable in their demands and rigid attitudes as were his former tutors and thus con­ tinue to oppress and crush the spirit of their students under the wheel of the educational vehicle. Most stu­ dents are forced into conventional molds but some break in the process. Others, like Hans Giebenrath's friend, Hermann Heilner, who openly rebels against the systematic suppression of his poetic and artistic gifts, are simply 2*3 expelled. Hans himself is thwarted and driven to the point where he finally suffers a collapse of health. In their incredible callousness and insensitivity, neither his father, his teachers, nor even his doctors see in the erratic behavior of Hans before his collapse the desperate

22. This is the meaning generally attributed to the title of the novel. Ernst Rose, p. 3°> adds that "the metaphor aptly indicates the mechanical character of this education and vaguely reminds the reader of the medieval method of execution by a wagon wheel on a rack."

23. The name Heilner denotes healer and, according to Boulby, pp. 61-62, is to be understood as the sane, heal­ ing and compensating aspects of Hans Giebenrath's person­ ality which are suppressed by this vicious system. 25 need for at least some self-expression. They remain, in Hermann Hesse's ironical description of their perceptive capacity, simply obtuse: Alle diese ihrer Pflicht beflissenen Lehrer der Jugend, . . . sahen in Hans ein Hindernis ihrer Wunsche, etwas Verstocktes und Trages, das man zwingen und mit Gewalt auf gute Wege zuruckbringen musse. Keiner . . . sah hinter dern hilfl-osen Lacheln des schmalen Knabengesichts eine unter- gehende Seele leiden und im Ertrinken angstvoll und verzweifelnd um sich blicken. Und keiner dachte etwa daran, dass die Schule und der barbarische Ehrgeiz eines Vaters und einiger Lehrer dieses ge- brechliche Wesen soweit gebracht hatten.24 (All these dutiful educators of youth . . . saw in Hans a hindrance to their wishes, something stubborn and inert that had to be forced back to proper paths. No one . . . perceived in the helpless smile of the small, boyish face the suffering of a perishing soul casting frightened and desperate glances at its surroundings. And it occurred to no one that the school and the barbaric ambition of a father and a few teachers had driven this fragile boy so far.) After his convalescence at home, feeling that he lacked the moral support of his disappointed father and finding

24. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, I, 485-486. Another condemnation of the pre-World War I German school system can be found in a passage in Hesse's novel Gertrud (Gesammelte Schriften, II, 55) in which the protagonist, the violinist Kuhn, voices what is perhaps the most valid objection of the idealistic student against these schools: Wo ich Genuss, Erhebung, Glanz und Schonheit ge- sucht hatte fand ich nur Porderungen, Regeln, Pflichten, Schwierigkeiten und Gefahren. (Where I expected to find enjoyment, edi­ fication, glory and beauty, I found only demands, rules, duties, difficulties and dangers.) himself unable to adjust to the prospect of becoming an apprentice in a machine shop, Hans becomes Hesse's first innocent crushed by an inadvertently evil system. Thwarted in his development, he deteriorates rapidly and finally, drowns himself. It thus becomes apparent that in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse innocence is considered a limitation in almost every sense of the word; it is seen as natural only early in life and the unconsciousness of it must pass before a normal degree of maturity and awareness can be achieved. Both authors imply that those failing to mature become psychological misfits who are either excessively insensitive, withdrawn or vulnerable. If, for instance, the non-reflective buoyancy of Conrad's young Marlow had not eventually been tempered by a deepening awareness of his physical and psychological limitations and by an increasing understanding of the needs of other men, he might well have become, later in life, a thwarted or oppressive personality not unlike Captain MacWhirr or Herr Giebenrath rather than a wise observer and counselor. Or, if the protag'onists in Hermann Hesse's later fiction had been permitted to remain in a state of innocence and non- involveinent with the negative side of life, they would probably have remained inconsequential recluses like Peter

Camenzind, while Hermann Hesse himself would most likely 27 have remained a mere "literary entertainer"2^ instead of becoming the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in

1946. Another reason why prolonged innocence is an un­ acceptable state in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse is that the innocents themselvesj due to their lack of ex­ posure or to their limited understanding of various mani­ festations of evil—i. e., malignant, uncontrollable, irrational and violent forces inherent in nature, circum­ stances or other men--are extremely vulnerable. When such confrontations with evil are sudden and unexpected, the innocents of Conrad and Hesse generally find themselves unequipped to cope with them and are paralyzed into inac­ tion or withdrawal; if they find no support from the outside, they simply perish. Joseph Conrad's best illustration of the sudden and ultimately fatal encounter of an innocent with human de­ pravity is probably his short story "II Conde."2^ The protagonist of this story is described by the first-person narrator as a refined but naive older Italian nobleman who is staying in Naples because this city has the only climate which keeps him alive. Since he avoids relevant thoughts

25. Hesse applied this term derisively to himself when, later in life, he referred to his early writings. 26. II Conde is a misspelling of the Italian term II Conte, which means "the count." 28 and spends nearly all his time on trifling activities, his entire mode of existence can be seen as a mere skimming over the surface of existence in the manner of Captain Mac- Whirr. In another sense he resembles Hesse's Peter Camenzind, for he too has retired from active life and tries to avoid all unpleasant experience. This comparison seems especially apt in light of the view that the rheu­ matic illness which had brought the count to Naples may well be an outward manifestation of his inner desire to 27 avoid reality itself. At any rate, the count's hereto­ fore successful barricading of himself against the negative side of life, and his naive sense of living in security in an essentially good and orderly world come to an abrupt end one day; while wandering in a public park he is suddenly confronted by a young, well-dressed southern Italian who, at knife point, demands his money and other valuables. This incident in itself, unpleasant an experience as it is, might not be enough to totally dismay this gentlemanly count, for his impotence in the face of evil can easily be rationalized; he is, after all, a weak and aging man, con­ fronted by an adversary whom the pedlar, Pasquale, later 28 describes as . .a very powerful Camorra (gangster)."

27. John Howard Wills, "Adam, Axel, and 'II Conde, Modern Fiction Studies, I (February 1955)/ 25.

28. Conrad, A Set of Six, p. 287. In addition, to strike out at this personification of human depravity would not be in keeping with the count's gentle­ manly self-image; nor does he want to call for help or report this holdup to the police, for public knowledge thereof might sully his good name. What unnerves the aristocratic Conradian innocent is the fact that later in a restaurant where he chances to meet his tormentor again, he learns that this fiendish young man is a university student, the son of a good family, and even the leader of a respectable fraternal organization. This destroys the count's long-held sense of social order, i. e., the belief that the quality of his fellow men depends on their family origin, their social position, or even their attire. But the final blow to the count's inadequate perception of reality and his exaggerated sense of dignity comes when this seemingly nice young cavaliere who had been watching the count pay his bill insults and threatens him again because he had not surrendered all his money. Like many other Conradian and Hessean characters who will be discussed on the following pages, Conrad's count must face the fact that evil will not be denied. It permeates society and is in man. But while other protago­ nists learn to live with it, the count decides that he would rather not be part of the world which, as Howard Wills so aptly puts it, is ". . .a wilderness, ruled alone 30 by the longest fangs, the sharpest claws," in which he must now live with the knowledge that essentially no one is totally devoid of evil regardless of what or who he appears to be.^9 However, there is no indication that he even suspects the evil core within himself. At the end of the story, he boards a train de luxe and, for all practical purposes, commits suicide by leaving the climate that until then had kept him alive. Another Conradian innocent who is shocked into reality and suffers the dire consequences of not having removed "... that unconsciousness ... of the evil which lives in the secret thoughts and therefore in the open acts of mankind ... by a gradual process of experience and information . . ."is Flora de Barral in Chance, Conrad's only novel which deals with the maturation of a young girl.3°

The sixteen-year-old Flora, whose mother died young and whose father v/as perpetually absent from his luxurious home, has lived a very sheltered existence, cared for by well-meaning servants, educated by private tutors, and raised by kind governesses. Her last governess, Eliza, however, is a cold, disillusioned, and unscrupulous aging woman who detests her employers for forcing upon her their

29. Wills, 24. 30. Conrad, Chance, p. 99. strait-laced mode of living and especially the repression of her sexual instincts. She has hidden her frustration well behind a fagade of culture, respectability and inter­ est in the i\rell-being of Flora, while she coldly plots to marry the girl to her own disreputable boyfriend, Mr. Charles, and thus to despoil her of the fortune which presumably will be settled upon her by her wealthy father. One day, however, Eliza learns that Mr. de Barral has suddenly gone bankrupt and has been imprisoned for fraud. This embitters her, particularly because she sees in it not only the defeat of her schemes but also the loss of what might be her only opportunity in life to gain wealth. And so this woman who "... had been the wisdom, the authority, the protection of life, security embodied and visible and undisputed," suddenly confronts the totally unsuspecting Flora, her eyes flashing, malice and hate in her voice, and accuses the astonished girl of being 11. . .in heart, mind, manner and appearance an utterly common and insipid creature . . . the child of a cheat and swindler . . ."in v/hose existence, if it were not for her money, no intelligent person would take any interest.31 After this sudden yet calculated attempt to destroy the girl by which Eliza means to get even with the evil fortune that she blames for her defeat, the hapless Flora

31. Conrad, Chance, pp. 117, 119 and 121. 32 de Barral is left as utterly confounded by evil as were all other previously mentioned Conradian and Hessean innocents.

And like the others. Flora withdraws after this traumatic loss of her sense of security and might have remained psychologically crippled all her life had she not finally been restored through her love for Captain Anthony, in many ways a victim of self-doubt and despair himself and thus to some degree, as Robert Haugh has pointed out, an external •52 personification of Flora's inner state. The most significant Hessean protagonist who, like Flora de Barral, finds help from outside and is thus able to confront and transcend evil inherent in circumstances or other men is probably Emil Sinclair, the young hero of Hermann Hesse's first truly modern novel, Demian. In the. first chapter of this novel, Emil is depicted as one of those Hessean innocents who, it seems, are almost invariably the product of an upbringing in a German middle class or upper-middle class home. Like the parents of the young protagonist in "Schon ist die Jugend," and of Peter Camenzlnd, Emil's parents appear to be personifications of goodness and benevolent authority who are raising him in an atmosphere of orderliness and cleanliness as well as in the framework of Christian conduct and conformity; they give

32. Robert F. Haugh, Joseph Conrad: Discovery in Design (Norman, Okla., 1957), "p. 89- 33 him love and guidance and in return expect of him obedience and excellent behavior. They and his sister are inhabit­ ants of the respectable world of "light" with which Emil also identifies himself at first. But unlike all the other Hessean and Conradian innocents discussed so far, Emil Sinclair is not only aware that even in his own home there exists within the realm of "light" another world, the sinister world of "dark," but from the very beginning he also feels in some mysterious way drawn to this other world, this realm of . . . ungeheuren, lockenden, furchtbaren, ratsel- haften Dingen, Sachen wie Schlachthaus und Gefang- nis, Betrunkene und keifende Weiber, gebarende Kuhe, gesturzte Pferde, Erzahlungen von Einbruchen, Tot- schlagen, Selbstmorden. Alle diese schonen und grauenhaften, wilden und grausamen Sachen gab es ringsum, . . . nur nicht in unsern Zimmern. . . .33 (. . . monstrous, enticing, terrible, mys­ terious things, objects like slaughterhouse and prison, drunks and scolding women, cows giving birth, fallen horses, tales of bur­ glaries, murders and suicides. All these nice and horrible, wild and gruesome matters existed all around us . . . except in our rooms. . . .) But even though Emil senses an inner connection with this "dark" realm, he also feels perfectly secure from it as long as he considers himself rooted in his parents' world of "light" and can always return to it.

33. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 104. However, the basic sense of security which Emil derives from his identification with his parental environ­ ment vanishes suddenly one day when he is contacted by Franz Kromer, an emissary from the other world of darkness and evil. Emil had been fraternizing with boys from the lower classes and attempted to enhance his image in their eyes by boasting that he had stolen apples from an orchard. This is not true; but the crafty Franz Kromer claims that the apples had indeed been stolen and then threatens to expose Emil unless he gives him money. Afraid of being exposed as a liar or of being reported to the police, Emil permits himself to be blackmailed and tormented by Kromer until his mind is clouded and he becomes physically sick. The Kromer episode abounds in Biblical allusions, as does much of Demian. The dire consequences of his alleged stealing of the apples from the orchard are analo­ gous to Adam's tasting of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. And like the legendary Adam, Emil loses his innocence as a result of this trans­ gression and is driven out of Paradise. He now begins to exist as an individual separate from his former one- dimensional world and, like all who lose their sense of the original unity of all things, he must accept self-division, guilt and suffering as the price of his increased awareness.-3

3^. Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Con­ sciousness. trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York, 1954), PP. 121- 122. 35 Like Mr. Brown in Lord Jim and other Conradian emissaries from the spheres of darkness who will be dealt with later, Kromer here acts as the devil. In fact Emil refers to him repeatedly as Satan or Fiend and blames only himself for his suffering when he states that his sin was specifically due to the fact that he had given the Devil his hand.35 But this insight makes Emil Sinclair react quite differently from most other innocents so far dis­ cussed when they are confronted by evil; he no longer remains paralyzed or wants to escape but comes to under­ stand that growth and maturity depend on his ability to accept life in its entirety. That, of course, is generally recognized as a pre-condition of psychological growth. In fact, most critics consider Emil's struggle with Kromer and the aspect of reality Emil represents a blessing in dis­ guise which forces him into having to adjust to the necessary disintegration of his childhood world and its fantasies and aids him in becoming increasingly more conscious of the actual meaning and relativity of such concepts as sin, good, and evil.36

Emil's pious parents, in their lack of understand­ ing of Kromer's world and its effects on their son, resemble the parents of the protagonist in "Schon ist die

35. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 114. 36. Boulby, p. 95. 36 Jugend," of Peter Camenzind, and most other Hessean parents; they have, of course, no inkling of the fact that their child is rapidly acquiring an understanding of cer­ tain realities of life which exceeds their own. Even Emil himself does not realize this until one evening after coming home from one of his unsettling encounters with Kromerj he is scolded for such a trifle as having wet shoes while the real reason for his deteriorating health is never even sensed or considered. Once Emil faces the fact that his father, especially, is in no position to understand or help him, he experiences a first sense of alienation from this parent to whom he would normally have looked for pro­ tection and feels provoked to say somewhat arrogantly and defiantly: "... ich fiihlte mich meinem Vater iiberlegenl Ich fiihlte, einen Augenblick• lang, eine gewisse Veraeh- tung fur seine Unwissenheit. . . ."37 (I felt superior to my father'. For a moment I felt a certain disdain for his ignorance. . . .) As a result of this changed relationship Emil begins to see himself no longer as an integral part' of his unsuspecting parents' world but rather as an uneasy outsider in distress and with no one to turn to. During this time of crisis help comes to Emil Sin­ clair from an entirely unexpected source; namely from Max

37. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 115. Demian, a somewhat older, unorthodox, and strangely mature boy who has just been enrolled in his school. For reasons the flattered Emil does not understand, Demian offers him his friendship, ascertains his secret plight, and frees hirn from the clutches of Kromer. Demian then proceeds to impress on Emil a new doctrine which is to give him the strength to live with his new-found awareness that not all can be well in the world when a child can so easily be deprived of his security and trust in the parental realm of goodness and light. One critic calls Demian1s doctrine ". . . the gospel of the Elect . . ." and defines it as ". . . the need to realize oneself at all cost and to transcend all the conventional dichotomies of good and evil."38 To explain later what he means by the Elect-- those who have the sign of Cain on their foreheads, which Demian claims to have noticed on the forehead of Emil-- Demian reinterprets the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. Cain, according to this version, apparently slew someone, perhaps a cowardly or evil member of his tribe, but cer­ tainly not literally his brother.39 Moreover, the mark God

38. Ralph Freedman, The Lyrical Novel (Princeton, N. J., 1963), P. 58. 39. Since Demian had earlier mentioned to Emil that Kromer should be killed if there were no other way to get rid of him, he seems to imply here that the slaying of an evil person is not necessarily an evil act, a thought which must certainly have been new to Emil and underlines Demian1s view of the relativity of all things. 38 was supposed to have put on Cain's forehead was actually to be understood as a mark of distinction, a faintly sinister expression, perhaps, in his intelligent and bold face which frightened his mediocre "brothers." Their story of his punishment through God's decree was a mere invention by which these cowards tried to conceal the fact that they themselves exiled Cain because they were afraid of him. It thus seems that Cain was not considered evil primarily because he committed a murder but because he had an inde­ pendent mind.^0 Cain, a man of superior intelligence, was then further ennobled by the suffering imposed upon him by his sheeplike fellow tribesmen—Abels all, eternally afraid of the new, the strong, and the different. The point of this analogy is that Demian considers Emil an Abel in his relation to Kromer, and that the coward­ ice Emil displayed must be overcome if he wants to mature. Emil knows all this intuitively, for while Demian is talk­ ing, he suddenly becomes aware of an inner response to what is said and asks himself: Sprach da nicht eine Stimme, die nur aus mir selber kommen konnte? Die alles wusste? Die alles besser, klarer wusste als ich selber?4l

40. This interpretation by Ernst Rose, p. 52, seems valid and, in fact, points out a recurring theme in Hesse's fiction.

41. Hesse, Gesammelte Schrlften, III, 135. 39 (Was this not a voice which could only come from within myself? £a voice] which knew everything? [a voice]] which understood everything better than I did?) But this is only a fleeting glimpse of subjective reality; it is all too profound to make a lasting impression on a ten-year-old boy. Consequently, once Emil is no longer in fear of Kromer he temporarily flees back to the atmosphere of his home as Adam might have fled back to Paradise had he been forgiven for his original disobedience. In fact there can be little doubt that this analogy expresses Hesse's intent, for Emil describes the home he now returns to as a "lost paradise," an "Edenic world," and as a world of purity and light. Other Biblical legends are alluded to when Emil describes himself as returning to the godfearing life of Abel, to parents who did not comprehend what had happened to their prodigal son, but who were glad he was ho restored to them. Emil's withdrawal after his initial realization that all men are marked and have their share in evil is, of course, a reaction similar to that of Hesse's Peter Camen- zind, of Conrad's Count in "II Conde," or of Flora de

Barral under similar circumstances; but to Emil this with­ drawal represents only a temporary respite. Four years later his desperate attempt to be Adam in a regained

42. Hesse, Gesammelte Schrlften, III, l40-l4l. 40 Paradisej i. e., to prolong his period of innocence by pre­ tending to be still part of his father's world of na'ivete and light, comes to a natural end. The detrimental effect which the encounter with previously unsuspected or ignored aspects of reality had on Conrad's count in "II Conde," Flora de Barral, and on Hesse's Ernil Sinclair was primarily due to shock resulting from the suddenness of such exposures, which allowed these characters no time to digest or to adjust to their experi­ ences. Generally, however, Conradian and Hessean protago­ nists, subject to circumstances which force them to the discovery of truth and reality, are not simply overwhelmed; instead they are involved in test situations, often some form of self-confrontation, in the course of which they gradually learn to adjust erroneous romantic self-concepts and come to a recognition of the often disagreeable but unalterable facts of life.^3 It is only when such charac­ ters fail to respond positively to the test and persist in fostering self-delusions that they are defeated by life. In this general category belong such Conradian protagonists as Almayer in Almayer's Folly and Willems in An Outcast of the Islands, who suffer and perish largely because they are incapable of development and remain unaware of the fact

43. Thomas M. Lorch, "The Barrier Between Youth and Maturity in the Works of Joseph Conrad," Modern Fiction Studies, X, Spring (L964), 74. that not all calamity which befalls men can or should be attributed to external causes or to evil manifest in the external world and other people. In fact, much suffering of many protagonists in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse is caused by malignancies within themselves which they need to recognize and transcend if they want to come to grips with and overcome the causes for their misfortunes. Hesse, who had tentatively explored this theme in Demlan, carries his investigation further in other works, such as his story "Kinderseele" ("Child's Soul"), which is similar to the first chapters of Demlan in that it contains an examination of some conflicts and urges of the child's psyche.^ The plot of the story again alludes to Genesis and hinges on the irrational urge of the well-brought-up young narrator to steal figs which his all-too-perfect, petty' father keeps in his room. After he gives in to this urge, steals some figs and other small items and makes himself guilty, the latent sense of inferiority and inse­ curity which this normal boy always feels in the presence of his•immaculate parent becomes so acute that he has fantasies in which he rids himself of this potential

44. The term psyche normally connotes "soul" or "mind." In this dissertation "psyche" is used as a techni­ cal term standing for the totality of.all psychological processes in man in the Jungian sense pointed out by Jolande Jacobi, The Psychology of Jung (London, 194-9)j p. 3. This definition seems to agree with the use of the term by Hesse, who was thoroughly familiar with Jungian psychology. 42 prosecutor by killing him and by burning the entire scene of his "crime." The realization that he is apparently capable of such atrocities, combined with the sheer pleasure he derives from a bloody fight with another boy (another emotion he did not think himself capable of experiencing), brings this young Hessean protagonist to the conviction that there is a certain lawless side to his per­ sonality and human nature in general; consequently the apparent flawlessness of men like his father is recognized as a mere pose while their inherent evil is expressed in other, perhaps more subtle and largely unrecognized ways. This shakes the young narrator's entire concept of life so that he despairingly asks: Gab es das in Gottes Welt, dass ein Mensch, ein Knabe, gleichzeitig alle hohen und bosen Triebe in sich hatte und leiden und verzweifeln musste, nur so als eine ungluckliche und komische Figur, zum Vergnugen des zuschauenden Gottes? Gab es das? Und war dann nicht--ja war dann nicht die ganze Welt ein Teufelsspott . . . ?45 (Could it be that in God's world a man, a boy, had within himself simultaneously all high and base motivations and was conse­ quently condemned to suffer and despair as if he were a comic figure for the entertain­ ment of the observing God? Was this possi­ ble? And was not then the entire world— yes, the entire world--an infernal mockery?) The story ends v/ith a reconciliation between father and son. But while the father learns nothing during this episode and

45. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 434. 43 remains as righteous as before, the young protagonist is left with the awareness of his own dark potentialities and man's precarious relation to his creator. But another of Hermann Hesse's protagonists suffers because, like Conrad's Almayer and Willems, he is incapable of assimilating and transcending the experience of his own dark impulses: Klein, the protagonist of the novel Klein und Wagner. Klein, as his name suggests, is a person of little consequence. He has spent many years working as a clerk at a bank, has a wife and children, and has been living the well-regulated and orderly existence typical of the German middle class. But one day Klein embezzles a large sum of money and flees to Italy to begin a new life. This act makes him technically a felon. Yet Hesse does not judge Klein by the letter of the law. Instead he makes it clear that his protagonist's unlawful actions are not the manifestations of a criminal nature but rather the result of a psychological disturbance in a normal man. Klein experiences and suffers from what Ernst Rose calls the forcible emergence of a long-neglected aspect of his per­ sonality, "... the suppressed demon in his soul . . . that simply overpowers his conscious mind.^ He can no longer submit to the domination that began with his father and continues from his wife, his employer, and society in

46. Rose, p. 60. 44 general, to the point where Klein is in danger of losing 47 what little individuality he has left. ' Klein initially became conscious of the compelling inner need to preserve his personal identity when he felt a strong desire to follow the example of a schoolteacher, Wagner, who under similar circumstances had tried to gain freedom by murdering his family. It is not until this urge becomes a fixed obsession that Klein feels compelled to escape rather than become a murderer too. However, he does not realize who the main object of his murderous compulsion is until he sees himself in a dream taking over the steer­ ing wheel of a car from a shadowy figure (it later turns out to be his wife) and, ignoring all danger, racing along "over sticks and stones." This insane drive produces in him a feeling of elation similar to that experienced by the protagonist of "Kinderseele" during his fight with Weber, or by young Marlow during his adventures associated with the sinking of the Judea. In fact the partial liberation of irrational urges in his dream elevates Klein to such an intensely happy state that he finally rejoices:

47. Such autonomous aspects of the human person­ ality appear often in the writings of Conrad and Hesse. They are, in fact, real constituents of the human psyche which, according to Jolande Jacobi, pp. 103-104, are representations of the Jungian archetype of.the Shadow and which appear as given characters' doubles or Doppelganger when they are projected in the outer world. 45 Ja, es war besser, selber zu steuern und dabei in Scherben 2u gehen, als immer von einem andern gefahren und gelenkt zu werden.48 (Yes, it was better to steer for one's self and to crash than to be always driven and steered by someone else.) Klein is here about to follow the voice of his fate, but he remains torn between what he calls the terri­ ble state of being unborn between two possibilitiesthis denotes the requirements of his former bourgeois existence and the urges of his newly awakened instinctive but evil nature. Klein endures this torture for a time; but when he finds that all attempts at positive self-assertion fail because of his compulsion to murder females who are capable of loving and dominating him seems unabated, suicide loses its initial horror and emerges as an attractive alternative to having to commit compulsive crimes. And thus, just before Klein finally takes his life, he sees the act simply

as . . eine Kinderei, etwas zwar nicht Schlimmes, aber Komisches und ziemlich Tbrichtes"^ (a childish impulse, something not really serious but amusing and rather foolish). Thus, Klein is a Hessean protagonist who feels an inner drive toward self-actualization but who does not have

48. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 470. 49. Ibid., 485. 50. Ibid., 548. enough understanding, stamina, or self-control to cope with his emerging shadow, or Wagner--the normally latent evil aspect of his personality. In this portrait, Hesse intro­ duces a new element important to the understanding of the unconscious impulses of man which are normally considered evil since their demands so often contradict the expecta­ tions of man's rational nature. Here Hesse shows that the dark motivations from within, even the instinct to kill, may not be entirely evil in intent but may aim at something desirable and necessary to the psychological welfare of the individual under the sway of such impulses. It seems that Hesse here uses Klein's predicament to indicate that in terms of the logic of man's unconscious nature, his true responsibility is not toward his family, his employer, or toward society in general, but rather toward the realiza­ tion of himself--even if this should endanger his physical existence. It seems to be understood that had Klein been able to accept his Wagner as an existing reality within himself, as Conrad's captain in "The Secret Sharer" accepted Legatt, and had he allowed his double enough Lebensraum within a prescribed and socially accepted sphere of existence, the road to further self-discovery and to greater possibilities would have been open. But as Heinz W. Puppe rightly points out, Klein is simply inadequate to cope with this compulsive force from his unconscious, which 47 pulls him out of his confinement, then puts him on his feet and tosses him out into freedom where he can learn to make 51 his own decisions. As with Hans in Unterm Rad, Hesse illustrates in Klein und Wagner tv^ possibility of the victimization of a weak protagonist b„ strong autonomous urges residing in his unconscious. That the dark'and potentially evil impulses need not necessarily lead to destruction, however, is vividly shown in the central chapters of Demian which, on the contrary, portray Emil Sinclair's gaining control of his destiny. But before Emil can begin to assert himself he has to leave the protective yet retarding influence of his parents' "Edenic world" to become an independent being; he has to be reborn, so to speak. He does not flee, like Klein, taking all unconquered urges with him, but simply outgrows their world. The occasion which induces Emil to leave his parents' home arises when, at puberty, his sexual nature upsets his precarious emotional balance and when his parents again fail to show understanding and turn their backs on his problems. Instead of explaining to Emil what he is experiencing and telling him how to cope with these new, bewildering urges, they deny them so that he justly complains:

51. Heinz W. Puppe, "Psychologie und Mystik in Klein und Wagner von Hermann Hesse," PMLA, LXXVIII (March 1953;, 129-130. 48

Sie halfen nur, mit unerschopflicher Sorgfalt, meinen hoffnungslosen Versuchen, das VJirkliche zu leugnen und in einer Kindeswelt weiter zu hausen, die immer unwirklicher und verlogener ward.52 (They only spent great care on helping me in my hopeless endeavors to deny reality and to go on living in a childhood world which became increasingly more unreal.)

But where Klein is left to the mercy of his own impulses, Emil finds the assistance of Demian, who again aids his now fourteen-year-old friend, this time in finding under­ standing and acceptance of his sexual nature, even though his parents and society in general try to ignore and deny it because they consider sexual instincts evil. In his second as well as his first appearance in the book, the premise upon which Demian explains the failure of society to come to grips with this manifestation of the instinctive nature of man is that insight is pre­ vented by the inadequacy of religious beliefs, for the unqualified acceptance of the traditional Christian dichot­ omy of the world into realms of good and evil keeps man from understanding reality. Demian explains that to wor­ ship God only as a benevolent father means to ignore the reality and strength inherent in the other half of creation, the realm of darkness. To attribute the dark aspect of reality to the devil, to suppress all drives emanating from there amounts to denying the truth of what life really

52. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 144. involves; if the whole were considered sacred and not just the artificially separated light half, sexuality would have its rightful place.^3 This time Emil frankly admits to himself, that his deepest convictions have been verbalized by Demian, who is generally considered to be an externali- zation of Emil's higher self. When, shortly thereafter, he is confirmed in his parents' church, he realizes that he can never be a part of it and attributes his own meaning to the ceremony which jls, in effect, a declaration of inde­ pendence : Nicht in die Kirche war ich nun bereit aufgenommen zu werden, sondern in etwas ganz anderes, in einen Orden des Gedanken und der Personlichkeit, der irgendwo auf Erden existieren musste und als dessen Vertreter oder Boten ich meinen Freund empfand.54

(I was no longer prepared to be received into the church but into something quite different, into an order of thought and per­ sonality which had to exist somewhere on Earth and whose representative or messenger I took to be my friend ^Demian] .) Unlike Hans Giebenrath, Flora de Barral and the count in "II Conde," Emil Sinclair finally not only recovers from the shock he receives through his sudden con­ frontation with human depravity, but he also succeeds in assimilating his experience, which results in the conse­ quent emergence of a greater understanding of reality and

53. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 156-159.

5^. Ibid., 159-160. 50 of himself. This is indeed what is expected of the pro­ tagonists of Hessean major fiction in and after Demian, all of whom are in the process of self-discovery which is not at all a deliberately chosen quest but rather a psychologi­ cal necessity and proceeds according to its own laws that function regardless of the attitudes of the conscious

mind.55 Many Conradian characters find themselves likewise on the road to often inadvertent self-discovery. The process is especially evident in Harlow, if he is viewed as a developing character who appears naive in "Youth" and

* acquires progressively more understanding of life and him­ self as he reappears in Lord Jim, "Heart of Darkness,," and Chance. To some degree this can also be seen in the progress toward self-recognition of one of Joseph Conrad's most typical "Mr. Kleins.," a protagonist who likewise has to face his potentially criminal core before he is willing to square with reality, namely, Lord Jim. But Jim is more fortunate than Mr. Klein in that he, like Emil Sinclair in Demlan, finds guidance in his struggle with his discordant

55. This quest for selfhood is essentially a definition of the Jungian process of individuation, which was thoroughly familiar to Hesse, who had undergone psy­ choanalysis in 1916-17, and which C. G. Jung, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, trans. R. P. C. Hull (New York, 1953)* p. 172, defines as ". . .a process by which man becomes the definite, unique being he in fact is." In this process one of the first steps toward psychological whole­ ness is the recognition and integration of various re­ pressed contents of the personal unconscious. 51 shadow and even achieves a measure of success in integrating it with his conscious nature, although he too ultimately fails to cope with it entirely. Lord Jim, like Demian, is a novel of self-discovery, but it does not go as far and instead deals more exten­ sively with the initial stages of this quest. Jim . originally . . . came from a parsonage," and his upbringing must have been similar to that of Emil Sinclair and of other young innocents mentioned on the preceding pages. In fact, Conrad refers to Jim's father in the same ironic tone in which Hesse describes the parents of Emil Sinclair, as possessing "... such certain knowledge of the unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions."^ Jim is then portrayed as a promising young man of pleasing appearance training to become an officer in the British merchant marine. He has already proved himself highly motivated and has, by and large, made an excellent impression upon his superiors. Like Marlow in his younger years, he expects that life will be a romantic adventure offering him numerous opportunities to prove his worth. In fact, when Jim dreams of the future he sees himself per­ petually the hero of rescue operations and the upholder of

56. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 5- 52 the despairing hearts of men. Even more than Klein, Jim is at first totally unconscious of the reality of his pov/erful other side which, however, betrays his conscious self when his self-glorifying fantasies are put to a test. Jim misses his first opportunity to prove himself heroic when he remains aboard his training ship while others rescue sailors from a sinking vessel during a storm. Since no one questions the motives for his lingering, his romantic misconceptions of himself remain as yet intact. However, years later reality enforces a certain amount of self-knowledge after Jim again fails to act courageously and joins the cowardly officer's of the Patna when they secretly abandon eight hundred hapless pilgrims after the ship has struck a submerged object and seems in danger of sinking. This time Jim's attempts to rationalize his actions fail and he admits his inadequacy, even to the point of self-abasement in submitting to a naval inquiry that he could have avoided. During a subsequent period of fleeing from the memory of his desertion and of some re­ luctant soul-searching, Jim echoes the anguished question that Emil Sinclair must ask after Abraxas has brought him full recognition of his inherent contradictions: why it should be so difficult to express all the life that clamors within him? And like Emil, who finally admits his kinship with evil, Jim is now forced to face the fact that at the crucial moment he experienced an inner sympathy for the cowardice of his former mates of the Patna and that he has the capacity for this evil act as well as they do. After this description of Jim's temptation and fall, which Paul Wiley feels is the greatest analytical passage in Conrad's earlier work,57 the action on the narrative level of Lord Jim is in its essentials reminiscent of the allegory of the expulsion from Paradise. Since the Patna did not sink after all, there are extenuating circumstances and the entire episode could be considered ". . . as a defect of overwrought nervous feeling. . . ."58 Jim is j^ged according to the stern and uncompromising code of the sea and expelled from the naval service; he has simply failed to do what is expected of a seaman, and especially of an officer or mate. However, Marlow's repeated statement must be con- 5Q sidered, that he sees Jim as ". . . one of us ... ," and that Judge Brierly, the unimpeachable professional sea captain, drowns himself shortly after he sentences Jim because, as Marlow explains, he seems to have recognized in himself the same weaknesses he publicly condemned in Jim and has thus avoided the possibility of being found out in

57. Wiley, p. 52.

58. Ibid., p. 53- 59. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 43. 54 similar circumstancesIt can therefore be inferred that Joseph Conrad, like Hermann Hesse, is personally more mer­ ciful than the court in his novel, for he recognizes the existence of a "Wagner" inherent in even the most respect­ able and honorable man. The subsequent action in Lord Jim can be seen as an attempt of the essentially brave but understandably reluc­ tant protagonist to come to grips with the stark aspects of his inner nature which have been revealed to him. His attempt to escape further painful self-confrontation by fleeing from port to port whenever the wretched story of his desertion catches up with him resembles Emil Sinclair's withdrawal after his contact with Kroner. And it is finally only through the lasting unselfish support of Marlow, who at this point plays a role similar to that of Demian, that Jim finds his way back to a sense of human solidarity and to ". . . that inward peace and that truth which reunites him with his own kind."^"1' And like Demian, who permits Emil to develop along his own lines and comes to Emil's assistance only when help is needed. Marlow offers active assistance to Jim only after he realizes that Jim will find no peace until he is given a new chance to prove

60. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 4-3. 61. William Wallace Bancroft, Joseph Conrad; His Philosophy of Life (Boston, 1933)* p. 65. to himself that he can now overcome his past cowardice and to purge his sense of guilt toward society. And so Marlow goes to the Swiss naturalist, Stein, whom Walter P. Wright so aptly calls "... that greatest of all Conrad's roman­ tic apologists,11 to ask advice on how he may help Jim learn to reconcile his conscious idealistic self-concept and his discordant shadow.62 Stein knows from experience that this is only possible if Jim is permitted to follow his dreams. And so he advises Marlow, in what is generally considered the central statement of the novel, that Jim expose himself to experience and strive for the fulfilment of his dreams in spite of all, for: "It is not good for you to find that you cannot make your dreams come true. . . . No! I tell youl the way is to the destructive ele­ ment submit yourself, and with the exertion of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up."^ It seems, then, that Stein thinks it best that Jim assert himself against the contradictory impulses of his inner nature and not permit himself to be torn asunder by them, as Hesse's Klein had been. The practical outcome of this conversation between Stein and Marlow is that arrange­ ments are made for Jim to go to Patusan, at once a location and a symbol of the unconscious, where he can literally and

62. Wright, p. 28.

63. Conrad, Lord Jim, pp. 213-214. 56 figuratively confront and struggle with the evil constitu­ ents of his nature. His journey to Patusan then is comparable to Emil Sinclair's journey into life after leaving home; both Hesse and Conrad are here portraying symbolic inward journeys of heroes endeavoring to come to terms with themselves in the region where truth and reality can be found. CHAPTER III

THE EXPLORATION OF EVIL WITHIN

In the preceding chapter it has been shown that many protagonists in the fiction of Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse, in spite of their individual differences and their divergent environments, are subject to the same ex-. ternal and internal forces which compel them toward greater awareness of the realities of existence. It has further been indicated that most protagonists of both authors who are not overwhelmed by life and who are capable of profit­ ing from experience eventually come to the realization that evil, which they originally perceived only in their envi­ ronment and in other people, exists within themselves as well and is often the actual cause of the calamities which befall them in life. Once the paradoxical nature of their psyches has been recognized, it becomes a necessity for many Conradian and Hessean characters t:> confront the normally hidden evil constituents of their personalities in an attempt to harmonize their contradictory impulses so that a degree of psychological equilibrium can be estab­ lished and maintained. That Conradian and Hessean characters in their quest for reality and truth should look within themselves 58 can be considered a logical necessity, since both authors make it quite clear that they consider man's inner nature not only the source of bothersome instinctive and often irrational urges but also the dynamic area in which all creative impulses originate and which, in fact, contains all human potentiality. Joseph Conrad's best-known formulation of the quest motif, which is also his artist's creed, is contained in the much anthologized preface to his novel The Nigger of t.he Narcissus. In this he affirms that the artist who aims at portraying the truth about life should search for it within himself, for only there, 11... in that lonely region of stress and strife . . . which, because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of sight ..." can he come to terms with himself and nature in general. Conrad states further that this region of the human psyche exists independently of surface con­ sciousness and is in fact the rootbed of man's sense of beauty, pity and pain, of his hopes and fears, his aspira­ tions and disillusionments, of his sense of loneliness and alienation, but also of the awareness of his solidarity with all men and all creation.^ The description of this matrix of human psychological and physical activity is in essence an artistic definition of what is in Jungian

1. Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus, p. xii. 59 p psychology considered the collective unconscious. It is this region into which those Conradian heroes must descend who are to acquire a truthful concept of themselves and therefore of the potential for good and evil in every man. It is there that they are brought face to face with per­ sonifications of unrecognized or undeveloped aspects of themselves which appear as alter egos., doubles, secret selves, Doppelganger, shadows or whatever they may be called in the terminology of literature, literary criticism and psychology. Morton Dauwen Zabel believes that the con­ frontations of Conradian characters with such personifica­ tions of dark areas of their dichotomized selves, disturbing as they may be, are often very necessary to their development because they lead to greater self- knowledge and are also of therapeutic value. In the fiction of Joseph Conrad the exploration of the largely unmapped territory of the deeper regions of the psyche, which is of some importance in many of his writings and is even the lei'tmotif in such works as "Heart of Dark­ ness," "The Secret Sharer," or The Shadow Line, is gener­ ally presented in secular and traditional imagery such as

2. Jung, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pp. 64-65, defines the collective unconscious as the area of the deep psyche which contains primoridal images that are detached from personal experience, largely autonomous and entirely universal. 3. Zabel, The Portable Conrad, pp. 28-29. 60 adventures at sea or journeys to exotic places, especially to the jungles and coasts of Africa and the Far East.^ Conrad's questing heroes are for the most part solitary men

separated from the guiding principles and protective restrictions of their native culture and are either physi­ cally or morally alone. Their adventures are generally considered symbolic journeys through darkness during which they are spiritually changed and from which they emerge as new and enlightened men; they are in a sense modern coun­ terparts of the heroes of classical antiquity who had to acquire illumination through descents into the underworld and similar perilous journeys.-'5

4. It seems significant that although Conrad's tales of adventure generally have a factual and autobio­ graphical basis, his major symbols, the sea and the forest, are representations of maternity and of the human uncon­ scious, as is pointed out by C. G. Jung in his Symbols of Transformation, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York, 1956)s p. 274, and his The Practice of Psychotherapy, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York, 1954), pp. 12-13. 5. One of the critics who argue that many Con- radian voyages are symbolic explorations of the psyche which relate to classical descents into the underworld is Albert Guerard, Conrad the Novelist (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 15. Other critics who are more specific about their comparisons, especially of "Heart of Darkness" to traditional descents, include Jerome Thale, "Marlowls Quest," University of Toronto Quarterly, XXIV (July 1955), 351-358,""who compares Marlow's river journey to a grail quest; Lillian Feder, "Marlow's Descent Into Hell, Nine­ teenth Century Fiction,IX (March 1955)> 280-292, who traces Conrad's indebtedness to Virgil's Aeneid; and Robert 0. Evans, "Conrad's Underworld," Modern Fiction Studies, II (May 1956), 56-62, who compares Marlow to Dante in his journey into the Inferno. 6l

While Joseph Conrad, who lived a turbulent and active worldly life, uses primarily secular imagery and analogies to portray the quest within which many of his protagonists must undertake, Hermann Hesse, the rebellious product of a strict pietiotic background, uses primarily religious symbolism and allusions to relate virtually iden­ tical explorations, encounters and transformationsMore­ over, since Hesse's famous Weg Nach Innen (his inward way) had its inception in Jungian analysis, his fictional night journeys lend themselves also more directly to psychologi­ cal interpretations than their Conradian equivalents,^ but in essence his protagonists must find their way in the same difficult and largely unmapped territory of the human psyche as their Conradian counterparts. Thus, in spite of their differences in external settings and in thematic

6. The notable exception is Hesse's novel Steppen- wolf, which is virtually devoid of religious allusions and has as its exclusive setting a European city. 7. Per Weg Nach Innen is the title of a collection of writings by Hesse dealing with self-exploration; later it became a motto of Hesse's artistic quest comparable to Conrad's descent motif. One of the selections included *in Per Weg Nach Innen is Pemian which, according to Theodore Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, pp. 9-11, is essentially an artistic rendering of Hesse's experiences during the seventy-two psychoanalytic sessions which he underwent in 1916-17 with Pr. Joseph B. Lang, an experience which influenced much of his later writing. However, Ziolkowski also mentions that this influence on Hesse's later novels, after Pemian and especially on Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, must not be overestimated, since Hesse's writ­ ings are above all art and go beyond the goals of clinical psychology. development, Conrad and Hesse show remarkable similarities in their fictionalized self-explorations and come to com­ parable conclusions. This becomes particularly obvious when one compares the limited journeys within by Jim during the latter chapters of Lord Jim and by Emil Sinclair throughout nearly all of Demian, or the more profound self- explorations depicted in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and in Hesse's Steppenwolf. Lord Jim's journey within, or his path to self- knowledge, is generally considered to begin with his arrival in the island forests of Patusan. Here he wants to win control over that aspect of himself which has frustrated his conscious aspirations and which, he feels, must be overcome before he can live up to his ideal self-concept of being able to bear the burden of heroic responsibility. But, as has been indicated before, Jim is handicapped by the fact that he is a chronic romantic, possessed by his illusions and capable of recognizing only a distorted form of reality, namely that of his personal beliefs and of his imagination. Jim, then, is a man for whom it is virtually impossible to recognize his own dark nature, which strikes him from below, so to speak, as a submerged object in the sea had struck the Patna—with similar results. And since Jim is incapable of projecting his awareness deep enough into his psyche to meet his other self, he tries to cope 63 with it by assuming a stance that counteracts and cancels its influence; he tries . .to exorcise the stranger in

Q a fierce, long, concentrated effort to be his opposite." This approach of course precludes a real solution, which must be based on a clear recognition and integration of the shadow,^ a process which Conrad best portrays in "The Secret Sharer," and Hesse in The Journey to the East and Steppenwolf. However, upon Jim's arrival in Patusan it seems as if his exposure to "the destructive element," which his tutor, Stein, suggests, might prove successful in that his conscious heroism will suffice to make his romantic notion work. In Chief Doramin, his son Dain Waris, and their tribe Jim finds people who not only accept and appreciate him because of the selfless and heroic assistance he gives them in their struggle against a local tyrant, Raja Tunku Allang, but who actually come to love and trust him as a friend. Moreover, Jim even wins the love of Jewel, a beautiful Eurasian girl whom he later marries. Thus, among the Malays of Patusan Jim finally finds the oppor­ tunity to manifest what he considers his true personality. This gradually restores his self-respect and he begins to

8. Dorothy Van Ghent, The English Novel: Form and Function (New York, 1961), p. 229.

9. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy, p. 238. 64 feel that he has- overcome his weaknesses and atoned for the cowardice displayed earlier during the Patna episode. Two years later, Marlow, whose sobriety has been used by Conrad to ironically counterpoint Jim's romantic view of life, finds that Jim has attained an almost legend­ ary status among the natives. His dream seems to have come true. He is known as the "white king," or "Lord Jim"; he is the man who has brought peace and justice to the island and has no intention of going back to the outside world. To Marlow's question concerning the matter Jim emphatically proclaims: "Good God I II want to leave! . . . For where? What for? To get what?" And so Marlow, when he realizes that Jim has resolved to remain where he has finally proved his worth, comments merely that "... the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love--all these things that made him master had made him a captive, too.""^ And all might indeed have been well for Jim had life not held yet another test in store for him, the sort of test the sea had admin­ istered to him before but of a severity which neither Stein nor Marlow had foreseen, a test which they might not have passed themselves had they been in Jim's place. Jim's final ordeal begins when one day, during his absence, Brown, a piratical desperado whose cynical atti­ tude tov/ard civilized values resembles that of Franz Kromer

10. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 2^7. in Demian, arrives with a gang of cutthroats to loot Patusan. By the time Jim comes to the scene there has been bloodshed on both sides and Brown's raiders have been sur­ rounded by Dain Waris and his men, who now demand Jim's approval for their plan to exterminate this gang of criminals. But instead of letting the men of Patusan handle this matter according to their code, Jim decides to confront Brown personally, in an attempt to find a less drastic solution. This is a tactical error which proves fatal to him. In the ensuing shouted dialogue across a creek which can be seen as symbolizing the chasm in moral con­ sciousness between the two, Jim, who is neither particu­ larly introspective nor crafty, is as easily deceived by

Brown as Emil Sinclair is by Kromer. In fact, it is the same emerging perception of the evil in himself and in other men which delivers Emil into the hands of Kromer, which now serves as an agent of Jim's destruction, for it enables Brown to establish by insinuation of their common blood and experience that both are indeed of a kind and share a common knowledge of secret guilt. During the course of their negotiations Brown furthermore senses and shrewdly plays on Jim's feelings that practically all men are victims of circumstances and, given a chance, would gladly redeem themselves, as Jim feels he has done. In the end Brown is so successful in convincing Jim that he is really a sort of dark brother to him, the kind of man Jim might have become in more adverse conditions that, in order to give him (and thereby symbolically himself) a clean siate, Jim thinks he settles the whole matter by simply asking Brown "Will you promise to leave the coast?" And when Brown promises to depart peacefully Jim even permits him to keep his weapons. Brown, however, is no mere victim of circumstances who recognizes his errors and would be glad to mend his ways. He has not been betrayed into evil but, like Kromer, is Evil Incarnate, the objectification of man's deepest unconscious, an emissary of the "... moral darkness that forever assaults man from the outer darkness--a world merciless, amoral, inhuman, and completely unaware of man's existence." 12 In spite of his deepened perception of his own personality Jim proves almost as gullible in relation to Brown, this personification of absolute evil, as are several classic examples of heroes in Western literature who founder because of their lack of understanding of the inherent malignancy in human nature, heroes such as Shake­ speare's Othello in his encounter with Iago, or Melville's Captain Delano in his encounter with the Negro Babo.

11. Conrad, Lord Jim, pp. 387-388. 12. Robert F. Haugh, "The Structure of Lord Jim," College English, XIII (December 1951), 140. 67 Brown of course has as little understanding of Jim's hesitation to permit the natives to exterminate him and his men as Jim has of the fact that Brown has no reflective moral consciousness at all. Instead of feeling gratitudej Brown is merely perplexed and insulted by Jim's clemency. "I could see directly I set my eyes on him what sort of a fool he was," he gasps in a deathbed conversation with Marlow, who questions him later; "Rot his superior soul J He had me there--but he hadn't devil enough in him to make an end of me. Not he'." Brown is simply left aghast by Jim's unwillingness to fight, to take him seri­ ously, and to consider him, a personification of the world's primordial darkness, a mere nuisance that can be shrugged off.^ Brown's thinking here resembles that of Kromer and manifests tendencies commonly found in psychopathic per­ sonalities who talk and act with apparent rationality but deny and laugh at most standards of civilized behavior. 14 Such types must really be compared to primordial men. At any rate, as an expression of sheer malicious­ ness or perhaps as an outraged protest against the people who v/ill not permit themselves to be plundered by his kind,

the retreating Brown and his gang kill Dain Waris and a

13. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 344. 1^4. Robert A. Clark, Six Talks on Jungian Psy­ chology (Pittsburgh, 1953).. P-75. 68 score of other natives. Since Jim is held fully responsi­ ble by the people of Patusan for the death of their kinsmen, he loses their love and respect. And since the affection of these people has become the foundation upon which Jim's dream is built, its loss amounts to shipwreck for him once more. But this time Jim rises to the occasion and acts in accordance with his heroic self-concept. In spite of all pleading by Jewel that he flee and save his life, he chooses to stay and to face the consequences of his actions; by now he has gained enough understanding of himself not to ration­ alize or to blame others for his mistakes. Consequently, he walks collectedly up to old Chief Doramin and, saying simply ". . . I am come in sorrow . . . I am come ready and unarmed . . . ," invites his grieving former friend to become his executioner.^ Whether Jim should be considered a tragic hero, a victim ". . .of the awful incongruity between human inten­ tion and its consequences in action, between ethical effort and the guilt acquired through such effort ..." or whether he is really ". . .a fool.^ A little child," as Brown maintains, is ultimately a matter of critical

15. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 415. 16. Van Ghent, p. 230. 17. Conrad, Lord Jim, p. 397. This view is shared by a number of prominent critics. For instance David Daiches, The Hovel and the Modern World (Chicago, i960), p. 32, declares that Jim's dea ;h was quite useless and merely ". . .a gesture of purely romantic histrionics." 69 opinion and of no great consequence in this study. What matters here is that in the forest of Patusan Jim finally attempts to cope with his inner weaknesses; and even though he does not become fully conscious, he does gain a deepened perception of his own personality, a knowledge of his uncon­ scious nature and his kinship with evil which his former romantic visions of himself did not include and which lead him to the acceptance of responsibility. From the point of view of Jungian psychology Lord Jim can be considered a tentative and limited exploration of the human psyche which, since Jim is clearly "one of us," Conrad probably meant to be a representative inner journey. In this sense Patusan would symbolize the realm of the personal unconscious, the contents of which are created by or at least linked to man's personal experience, are generally accessible to the ego and must be consciously recognized and integrated before further progress can be made toward gaining more profound understanding and control of the self."*"® What Jim comes to recognize-and learns to accept in Patusan as an existing fact about himself and human nature in general is again what Emil Sinclair learns during his encounter with Kromer: namely that all men are inherent cowards. And once this relatively simple manifestation of

18. Jacobi, p. 77. 70 evil in himself has been faced, Jim learns to cope with it by deliberately cultivating the compensating virtue of courage. To that extent Jim succeeds in Patusan where, in a sense, he has barricaded himself against more disturbing manifestations of reality, i. e., of the truth about deeper contents of the psyche, including his own. But in Conrad as in Hesse the wilderness will not be denied; it finds Jim in Patusan as it had found the count of 11II Conde" in Naples and Emil Sinclair in his German home town. The emergence of Brown, however, brings Jim into contact with a personification of contents of the collec­ tive unconscious which function outside, or below, con­ scious human values and in relation to which he finds himself relatively helpless. To be able to understand such a figure of the deep, man must first probe his own nature to a corresponding depth; he must embark upon a course in which his illusions will be challenged and destroyed and his outlook on life altered profoundly and permanently. Since Jim neither recognizes nor integrates the dark core of his nature a real solution, such^as is achieved in "The Secret Sharer," for example, is precluded here. Marlow, however, is an example of a man who achieves integration to a remarkable degree during his successive appearances in Conradian fiction, where he undergoes the gradual transfor­ mation from an idealist (in "Youth") to a skeptic (in 71 "Heart of Darkness" and Chance), and who is consequently forced into a new adjustment to life."^ As Jim's voyage to Patusan is actually a thinly veiled journey within, Emil Sinclair's progress in Demian after he. leaves home is an even less veiled portrait of a subjective exploration. And as Jim's degree of self- awareness is ultimately limited, that of Emil Sinclair likewise remains relatively superficial in that he does not arrive at a profound understanding of the nature of evil. Sinclair, like Jim, is primarily striving for self- fulfillment in the Nietzschean sense rather than for a complete recognition and integration of the contents of the * po deeper strata of the psyche. The development of the pro­ tagonists in Lord Jim and Demian, then, is toward an ideal self-portrait and both move under the guidance of intel­ lectual tutors whose advice is quite similar, namely to expose themselves to experience and to try to cope with all consequences in the light of their own vision. But while Jim, after seemingly conquering for himself a place in the sun at Patusan, is in the end overcome by forces of dark­ ness and evil inherent in the deeper psyche which he has

19. See Gerald Levin, "The Scepticism of Marlow," Twentieth Century Literature, III (January 1958), 177. 20. Joseph Mileck, "The Prose of Hermann Hesse: Life, Substance, and Form," German Quarterly, XXVII (May 1954), 166. . 72 not met or learned to control, Emil Sinclair has only one more relatively harmless involvement with the "dark world" before proceeding unerringly toward the realization of an

ideal--if incomplete—self. The final phase of Emil's journey begins with what is considered as the second general stage in his develop­ ment , after he has fallen in with a group of slovenly and dissolute peers at a boarding school and has taken part in their drinking and wild living until he suddenly becomes aware of the incongruity between his disgusting behavior and his Idealized self-concept. In a scene of general stock-taking which in some ways is similar to the trial that forces Jim to a limited self-confrontation, Emil passes judgment upon himself: Also so sah ich innerlich ausl Ich, der herumging und die Welt verachtete! • Ich, der stolz im Geist war und Gedanken Demians mitdachte! So sah ich aus, ein Auswurf und Schweinigel, betrunken und be- schmutzt, ekelhaft und gemein, eine wiiste Bestie, von scheusslichen Trieben iiberrumpelt 1-21 (So that was what I looked like inside 1 I who walked around scorning the world! I, who was proud in spirit and partook of the thoughts of Demian! That was what I looked like, an excrement, a filthy pig, drunk and soiled, disgusting and base, a dissolute beast overtaken by hideous urges.) But while Jim's judges are members of a naval court, i. e., forces outside himself, Emil's equally stern judge

21. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, l6S. 73 is his own conscience; this distinction is very important and indicates the difference in the development of both novels from this point on. While Jim remains largely ignorant of the fact that his achievements in the outer world are symbolic of his inner development, Emil Sinclair « • soon comes to realize that his outer experiences are essen­ tially reflections of his inner state. This becomes par­ ticularly obvious when Emil finds himself attracted to a girl who at first appears to him reminiscent of the Dantean ideal and whom he consequently christens Beatrice. Soon thereafter, however., when he attempts to draw her face, he actually reproduces a likeness of Demian and, upon closer inspection, of himself. This brings him to the realization that the actual girl is of consequence only as a mirror in which he perceives a new attractive aspect of himself ris­ ing from his unconscious, an episode reminiscent of the emergence of Leggatt from the sea in Conrad's "The Secret Sharer." Thus he does not feel the need to pursue his interest in her any further but instead proceeds to search for his own ideal within himself through the examination, acceptance or rejection of internal archetypal figures in pp what has been called the process of his internalization."

She is Emil's femme inspiratrice, a projection from within himself which leads him on his vita, his line of destiny,

22. Ziollcowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, p. 100. 74 as her prototype had led Dante in The Divine Comedy. Emil's road, however, does not lead to a Dantean heaven but parallels Goethe's Weg nach•Innen depicted in Faust to . the royal road to the 'Mothers' . . the matrices of artistic creation.23 In this realm Emil 'experiences a rebirth which is symbolically expressed in a picture he feels compelled to paint, the reproduction of a young sparrow hawk trying to free itself of its egg. Dernian interprets this picture as symbolic of Emil's need for psychological growth and inde- oh pendence. This is generally considered the highly appropriate central image of the novel which, according to Demian, signifies that Sinclair too must fight his way out of the egg--the world of his childhood--before he can develop further, for "... who would be born must first destroy a world."2-' Shortly thereafter Emil has a signifi­ cant dream in which Demian obliges him to sv/allow the bird of prey which he then perceives as growing within himself. At this stage of his development Emil finds a new mentor in Pistorius, an organ player and renegade

23. Rose, p. 50. 24. Such an interpretation seems valid, since according to Jung, Symbols of Transformation, p. 215, birds are often images of the soul, while the egg, Ibid., p. 354, is often seen as "the cosmic birthgiver."

25. Hesse, Gesammelte Schrlften, III, 185. 75 theologian who resembles Stein in Lord Jim in that he directs his charge to new territory in which he can enhance his growth, except, of course, that Emil's Patusan is more obviously the landscape of his own soul. During his discus­ sions with Pistorius, Ernil gains a new understanding of the worlds of light and darkness between which he has felt him­ self suspended for so long, and he begins to realize that these two worlds are really two sides of the same coin, or the two poles of reality, which find their expression in the symbol of the Gnostic deity Abraxas.Further medita­ tion on this subject brings Emil to the realization that the Christian dichotomy of the world and of man's nature into the separable realms of good and evil is really insupportable in the light of the facts of existence, and that the orthodox worship of a patriarchal god constantly holding back the evil influence of the devil amounts to denying validity to half of life. With this realization Emil transcends Christian dogma, which he had considered inadequate long before, and thus reaches another milestone on his path toward gaining intellectual independence. His progress can also be interpreted as Steigerung, the process

26. Edmund Gnefkow, Hermann Hesse: Biographie 1952 (Freiburg, 1952), p. 71, explains that Abraxas, who served ancient Egyptians as a symbol of wholeness, is used by Hesse as a Symbol der Elnheit and represents the uni­ fication of divine and infernal components of existence and of the human psyche. 76 of intensification of self-knowledge and life energy which is a frequent theme in German literature and receives its fullest treatment in Thomas Mann's novel Per Zauberberg

(The Magic Mountain). The most important lesson, then, which Emil learns from Pistorius is that he must reabsorb the psychic con­ tents which he habitually projects upon his external envi­ ronment if he wants to make progress toward selfhood, for these projections are, in fact, archetypal constituents of his own inner personality. He learns, moreover, that both faces of Abraxas, his good and evil sides, must be accepted as valid and equivalent aspects of reality, for the worship of a one-dimensional god hinders self-development. The recognition of the normally repressed aspects of the human personality is simply necessary before the totality of human impulses can be properly channeled into meaningful activities.27 The painful yet inevitable parting between Emil and Pistorius takes place after Emil feels that his mentor has nothing further to offer him and that he is compelled to proceed alone on his course. This scene is in some ways reminiscent of'Marlow's final leave-taking from Patusan after Jim has decided not to accept Stein's offer to return and instead prefers to follow the line of his destiny to

27. Rose, p. 55- 77 the end. As Marlow's departure from Patusan marks the beginning of the final phase of Jim's venture., Emil's parting from Pistorius introduces the final phase of his journey. But instead of having to confront a personifica­ tion of absolute evil and darkness, as Jim must in Brown, Emil now meets Frau Eva, Demian's mother, who accepts him into her life and her circle as Jim had been accepted by Chief Doramin and his tribe. Even though she too is a figure of the deep realms of the psyche (comparable to Goethe's Mothers in Faust, II) she has an entirely differ­ ent function; she is a representation of the universal archetype of The Great Mother, a figure who embodies every- thing a woman can be to man. 28 Sinclair senses this immediately and comes to regard her very ambiguously as a potential lover, mother and goddess. He perceives instinc­ tively that in Prau Eva all opposites which as yet tear him apart have been resolved and coexist harmoniously. Thus for the first time in his life he has come in contact with a human being in whose presence he feels completely at ease because she seems the very embodiment of all he is striving for, and whose very existence holds the promise that he too can eventually achieve a similar psychological equilibrium.

28. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, p. 133. The significance of this Jungian archetype to human psychological development will be discussed later in this chapter and finds its fullest treatment in Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York, 195^). 78

And indeed it is the role of Frau Eva to guide Emil beyond the point which he has reached under the tutelage of Pistorius and beyond the point ever reached by Lord Jim, namely to the realization that no romantic concept and no personal attachment has permanent value, and that the desire to adhere to a'nything' lastingly can only bring dis­ appointment. Soon thereafter the object lesson is applied to Emil when, at the outbreak of World War I, he and Demian must leave Frau Eva and are sent to the front lines. The final section of Demian again resembles that of Lord Jim in that it deals overtly with violent action which is, however, really a symbolic reflection of confrontations between the ego and other parts of the human psyche on deeper levels. But while Jim's confrontation with Brown can be interpreted as a meeting with his rejected lower self, which is in many ways comparable to R. L. Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, Emil's final meeting with Demian is generally seen as a meeting and fusion with his own higher self and represents the final phase of his quest.And while the encounter between Jim and Brown is related as a grim

29. Joseph Mileck, "Names and the Creative Process," Monatshefte, LIII (April-May 1961), 171, argues that the.name Demian should be considered a clue to Hesse's intent in creating this character, for the name is derived from the Greek word dalmon which denotes Sinclair's daemon. ". . . his admonishing inner voice, his guiding spirit . . ." and is thus a•representation of a power latent in his own . personality. 79 confrontation between two irreconcilable opponents, which suggests the deep hostility between the ego and dark aspects of the human psyche., the final interaction between Emil and Demian is depicted in a most conciliatory vein. •The violent.action which symbolizes the attempt to inte- » . » grate primitive levels of consciousness in Lord Jim is here minimized and augmented by Emil's visions of mother Eva's pained countenance and of stars springing from her forehead, i. e., by imagery which suggests a new birth, or the inte­ gration of the ego and positive, light aspects of the psyche. This is portrayed on the narrative level when both Emil and Demian are wounded in action and meet for the last time in a field hospital where Demian diesj but before he departs forever he consoles the deeply shaken and seemingly lost Emil with an assurance of his continued presence within Emil's self: Ich werde fortgehen mussen. Du wirst mich viel- leicht einmal wieder brauchen, . . . Wenn du mich dann rufst, dann komme ich nicht mehr so grob auf einem Pferd geritten oder mit der Eisenbahn. Du musst dann in dich hinein horen, dann merlcst du, dass ich in dir drinnen bin.-30 (I will have to depart. Perhaps you will need me again at some future time, . . . When you call me then I will not arrive crudely on horseback or by railroad. You will then have to listen into yourself; then you will notice that I am within you.)

30. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 256. Thereafter, apparently to be certain that his meaning is not lost, Hesse has Emil confirm the validity of Demian's last words by agreeing that when he looks deeply into his soul he can see his own image, which is now a perfect semblance of ". . . Ihm, Ihm, meinem Freund und Fuhrer" (Him, Him, my friend and guide).31 In this'final'sentence of Demian Hesse twice capitalizes the personal pronoun "him," which has been interpreted as Hesse's intent to por­ tray Demian as a Christ figure. This would then indicate that this entire psychological novel could be understood as 32 a gospel written by an ardent disciple. From the Jungian point of view, however, this last scene in Demian strongly suggests the attainment of self­ hood, or psychic totality, which is the aim of the Jungian process of individuation. Some critics point out that the various characters in Demian are indeed clearly artistic objectifications of archetypal figures from within the human psyche. And it is obvious that Emil himself repre­ sents the author's ego; that K^omer is his shadow (or Emil's Gentleman Brown); that Beatrice represents his anima, or soul-mate; that Pistorius, at least to some extent, fits the Jungian concept of The Wise Old man; and

31. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, p. 257- 32. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, p. 140. 81 that Frau Eva, as previously indicated, represents the Alma Mater. If one adds Demian, who appears as a personification of the "... eternal self, directing Sinclair from a wakening to maturity and liberating him from himself through his final religious vision," the picture is com­ plete.33 The attempt to suggest such a close relationship between Hessean fictional characters and typological figures in Jungian theory is, of course, a highly specula­ tive venture and may well do injustice to Hermann Hesse's i art, but it is nevertheless an intrinsic part of the criticism of Hesse's works.3^ So it seems clear that as an exploration of the unconscious, Demian remains, in the final analysis, as tentative as does Lord Jim; for too much is glossed over and too much unexplored territory remains behind. The fact that in the first chapter of the novel Emil's shadow, Kromer, simply vanishes after Demian talks with him may be considered indicative of the fact that Hesse is even less certain of how to come to grips with the evil latent within

33. Oskar Seidlin, "Hermann Hesse: The Exorcism of the Demon," Symposium, IV (November 1950), 335- 34. Orthodox interpretations of this sort are further complicated through the fact that, as C. G. Jung explains in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R. P. C. Hull (New York, 1959), pp. 37~3t>* not all archetypes can be directly experienced in personified form and that, at any rate, others manifest themselves in so many forms and guises that clear and final interpretations are virtually impossible. the human psyche than is Conrad in Lord Jim. Emil's beatific vision at the end of the novel can thus represent no more than an indication of the possibility, but not of the fact, of a permanent resolution of his inner conflicts. That Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse considered Lord Jim and Demian"as. no more than tentative" explorations'of- the human psyche has already been pointed out and can also be deduced from the fact that both authors explore the same territory with more profundity in two other works—Conrad in "Heart of Darkness," and Hesse in Steppenwolf. That Conrad became more and more involved in his artistic creation is also shown by his narrative method, for he moved from the omniscient point of view of earlier novels such as Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands to the first-person narrator in Lord Jim and "Heart of Darkness." While Hesse, whose writings.are unabashedly autobiographical, rarely hesitates to identify himself with his protagonists, Conrad arrived at such a degree of per­ sonal involvement only gradually and with much caution. In The Nigger of the Narcissus he is closer to his subject matter and suggests a sense of brotherhood when, at times, he uses the communal "we.". In Lord Jim, which is told from various points of view, the greater part of the story is in the hands of Marlow and told in the first person, which indicates that Conrad at least partly identifies himself with him. In "Heart of Darkness," however, Marlow takes over the telling of the story and acts as the main char­ acter. It seems, then, that Conrad is here fully involved with the world he creates and that this story, like Hesse's Demlan and Steppenwolf, is primarily an autobiographical tract. "Heart of Darkness" resembles Lord Jim in that its main setting is again a primitive, exotic corner of the world; but while the central action in Lord Jim takes place in one locality, namely the Malay island of Patusan, the action in "Heart of Darkness" remains unfixed and is pre­ sented in the form of a symbolic river journey which, together with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, has become one of the most famous narratives of its kind in world litera­ ture. The action underlying "Heart of Darkness" is an authentic experience of the author, a journey up the Congo

River aboard the steamer Roi des Beiges in 1890, which had as its objective the rescue of a seriously 'ill station agent, Georges Antoine Klein, who died on the way back to civilization. Factual elements of this venture and what Conrad witnessed of the ruthless colonial exploitation of the Congo territory as well as the barbaric behavior of many whites toward African natives have been artistically 84 transformed and given universal relevance.35 Marlow's dangerous journey up the Congo River is thus here portrayed as a quest in its most profound sense, a quest for self- knowledge, for "... the naked soul . . . the something or nothing that lies at the innermost center of man. . . ."36 The basic supposition upon which the validity of Conrad's analogies in "Heart of Darkness" rests is that since the ancestors of the modern European were once as primal and wild as is the African native untouched by civilization today, and since the differentiated psyche of Western man is a product of evolution, the unconscious of modern man on its deeper levels is essentially akin to the conscious mind of a savage African. In this sense the journey of a modern European to primitive regions of Africa is a journey not only to his racial past but also to the depth of his own soul. And if, in the course of such a journey, primitive instincts and passions are awakened which modern man had deemed either forgotten or at least perma­ nently covered with civilized reactions, then he has dis­ covered a truth about himself of which most men seem unaware, yet which explains much primitive overt behavior.

35. Jocelyn Baines, Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography (New York, i960), p. 117, explains that Conrad was profoundly sickened by the excesses he witnessed.

36. Louis J. Halle, Jr., "Joseph Conrad, An Enigma Decoded," Saturday Review of Literature, May 22, 1948, p. 7. 85 If, furthermore, primordial modes of behavior can so easily usurp control of modern man's rational faculties, then the seemingly solid fabric of civilized behavior is no more than a veneer covering as yet unregenerate brutes. And as such Conrad depicts the majority of white men in the Congo. The account of his journey which Marlow gives one evening to three persons aboard the Nellie, a cruising yawl anchored in the sea-reach of the Thames, is obviously designed to have prophetic and introspective qualities, for during his narration Marlow is described as sitting cross- legged, with straight back in ". . . the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes. . . ."37 That his listeners are interested only in the outward aspects of the medita­ tive tale which follows and do not understand its central meaning is almost a foregone conclusion, for Conrad

37. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 50. This image inspired some commentators to interpret "Heart of Darkness" along Buddhist lines. H. C. Brashers,."Con­ rad, Marlow and Gautama Buddha: On Structure and Theme in Heart of Darkness," Conradiana, I, Summer (1969), 63-72, for example, traces eight distinct episodes in Marlow1s tale and relates them to the corresponding stages of the Noble- Eight-Fold-Path of Buddhism. And William B. Stein, "Buddhism and 'Heart of Darkness,'" Western Humanities Review, XI, Summer (1957)j 281-285,.compares the experiences and spiritual transformation of Marlow to a bodhisattva, one who foregoes nirvana to serve others. Hesse explores the possibilities the Buddhist path may have for Westerners in his novel Siddhartha and, according to Rose, pp. 71-72, also implies that Westerners cannot hope to return to the state of primitive innocence aspired to by Buddhists and can at best temper their materialism and intellectuality with the contemplation and humility of the Eastern path. 86 identifies them by their job descriptions—the Director of Companies, the Lawyer and the Accountant, i. e., as repre­ sentative types of Western men of deeds and accomplish­ ments. Such men are, in Conrad's fiction, usually blinded by their preoccupation with the material aspects of life and generally cannot afford to admit to themselves the spiritual and moral vacuity of their interests and endeav­ ors because they have no resources of inner strength. This judgment of Western man's attitude of self-satisfaction and unreflectiveness toward those trying to become acquainted with unexplored areas of the globe, and by analogy, with unmapped regions of the inner mind, which is also a fre­ quent theme in Hesse's fiction, seems to be substantiated by Conrad himself when he portrays Marlow as having reaped little more than sympathetic smiles or outright scorn before he first left for the Congo. A typical reaction of this sort is expressed by the company doctor in Brussels, who insinuates sarcastically that Marlow must be insane.if he wants to go "out there."38 During his symbolic journey from Europe to Africa, i. e., from the conscious and rational areas of man's mind to its unconscious and irrational regions, the overt action of "Heart of Darkness" becomes appropriately more absurd as the journey proceeds. Somewhere along the African coast

38. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 58. 87 Marlow observes a small and comparatively insignificant French warship popping shells into the vast continent and feels the insanity of these proceedings even more intensely when someone in all seriousness calls the savages hiding somewhere in the bush "enemies."39 Once Marlow arrives at the company station he "notices immediately the chaos- of the place and much pointless activity; and he is especially appalled by the barbaric treatment of the Africans pressed into service by cruel whites who were too lazy to work themselves and came to Africa for the sole purpose of filling their pockets as quickly as possible and entirely at the expense of their-victims. But even in their rela­ tionships with each other, intrigue and backbiting are the rule; all philanthropic pretense and many civilized values have been dropped, and there is apparently no attempt to cover their inherent maliciousness and inordinate greed. To Marlow the self-righteousness of these men, which suggests their blindness to their own natures, seems worst of all; apparently it has never occurred to them that the black men they mistreat so callously are also human and, in a sense, personifications of their own dark souls; or that to the enslaved tribesmen they must seem like white devils from some mechanical hell. This form of moral blindness could be considered indicative of the severe dichotomy of

39- Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 62. 88 the European psyche, and the resulting fear of its dark aspects may well be responsible for the tendency of West­ erners to project their undesirable qualities on convenient scapegoats. In this instance, the hapless Africans must serve this purpose since, because of their dark skins, they seem especially well-suited embodiments of the projected internal darkness of these Europeans. To this point "Heart of Darkness" can be considered no more than an exploration of what Jungian theory con­ siders the personal unconscious, i. e., the upper stratum of the human psyche which harbors only contents that result from personal experiences and repressions, and that are therefore similar in members of given societies.^0 The vices exposed in the first chapters of "Heart of Darkness" must therefore be considered as those specifically fostered by the Western way of life. If Marlow, then, in his suc­ cessive appearances in Conradian fiction gains increasingly more self-awareness, so far in this narrative he has learned no more about the depravity of human nature than he had become aware of in Lord Jim. However, this situation changes when Marlow, now in command of an old steamboat with a small group of whites and a few natives trained to do menial tasks, leaves the

40. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, p. 65. 89 company station, this dubious "outpost of progress,11 and embarks upon the actual journey to the inner districts of the Congo. From this point "Heart of Darkness" becomes an allegorical and symbolic exploration of regions of the inner mind deeper than those fathomed so far by either Conrad or Hesse,' except that from those regions emerged true emissaries of darkness and evil, such as Gentleman Brown in Conrad's Lord Jim and Franz Kromer in Hesse's Demian. On the narrative level Marlow's journey becomes increasingly more difficult as his decrepit steamer chugs mile after mile through deepening gloom toward Kurtz's station. The initial struggle with the elements soon turns into an ordeal that affects Marlow psychologically more than physically and becomes one of those tests which aims at showing the inner worth of a Conradian hero by bringing out either his strengths or his weaknesses, and sometimes both. In this narrative, however, all tribulations serve primarily to bring Marlow to a deepening understanding of human nature and thereby of himself, in the same sense that Emil Sinclair's entire venture in Demian had been a self- exploration. And as in Demian, the lessons which the pro­ tagonist learns are largely lost on others. The whites who accompany Marlow in "Heart of Darkness" are "faithless pilgrims" who lack the sensitivity to profit from the 90 experience of the journey. To them Mr. Kurtz is simply a highly successful manager of a company station of whom they are jealous, although he is reputed to have ruined the district by his highly irregular methods of obtaining ivory and who, at any rate, is now seriously ill and must be brought back. But to the more reflective Marlow, Kurtz seems the embodiment of some sinister wisdom about another sphere of existence to which he feels drawn as Emil Sin­ clair feels attracted to the world of Kromer in Hesse's Demian. And it is at first a subtle sense of kinship which enables only Marlow to understand Mr. Kurtz's latest esca­ pade—Kurtz had come 3°0 miles down the Congo River with a fleet of canoes laden with prime ivory but had suddenly abandoned his loot and turned back—for Marlow declares: As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse.: the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lonely white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home--perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness. . . .41 Marlow knows that Kurtz differs from the other Europeans in that he did not come to Africa just for personal gain but rather as . .an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, . . as a man who seriously intended to help Ixo the natives better themselves and to humanize them. c But

41. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 90.

42. Ibid., p. 79. once Kurtz was isolated in primordial nature, his noble ideals and civilized values, which seemed artificial and irrelevant here, ceased to control his actions while the dark side of his personality became able to express itself more freely. It is not likely that even Kurtz at first realized to'what degree he was becoming a soul which expressed only extremes, either unbridled savagery or excessive idealism. This dichotomy perhaps finds its best expression in Kurtz's brilliant guidance report for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Cus­ toms, which ends abruptly with the often-cited blazing exclamation; "Exterminate all the brutes 111 To "normal" Europeans as they are depicted by Con­ rad in "Heart of Darkness," men armed against the influence of the wilderness by their callousness, greed and arro­ gance—which is also the earmark of their bourgeois equivalents in Hesse's fiction—Kurtz is and remains neces­ sarily an enigma. If Marlow comes to understand Kurtz it is because he "tunes in" to Africa, a process which begins with an increasing sense of kinship with the natives and their mode of life. At first, on the coast, he was merely sympathetic with their lot, but on the river boat he begins to see them as useful human beings and expresses apprecia­ tion for his native crew: "... Pine fellows—cannibals—

43. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 118. 92 in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them."^ Later he expresses admiration for their restraint in not attacking the crew in spite of their hunger, a quality conspicuously absent in the pilgrims and especially in Kurtz„ As the boat penetrates further into the heart of darkness and he listens to the sound of signal drums and the clamor of tribal festivities he finds that something within him responds to ". . . this wild and passionate uproar" and feels thrilled by the thought of his common humanity with the natives.^ The fact that Marlow's symbolic journey to the undifferentiated core of the human psyche proceeds under the auspices of a number of female images on various levels of experience adds significance to this tale. Since ships and boats are images which from time immemorial have been

il fi associated with birth and maternity, the French steamer that brings Marlow to central Africa, and the riverboat which now takes him to the inner regions of the Congo, represent experiences on levels increasingly closer to the maternal core of the psyche. That it is a woman, his aunt, who secures Marlow his job in the Congo, can perhaps be interpreted as another indication of the importance of the

44. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 94.

45. Ibid., p. 96.

46. Neumann, The Great Mother, pp. 256-258. 93 female principle during Marlow's venture. This impression is further intensified by the two women sitting outside the company's office—M. . . guarding the door of dark­ ness . . .11—feverishly knitting black wool while Marlow signs his contract. That one of them even ushers him into the office of "the great man11^ suggests intervention or guidance by the Fates, symbolic representatives of the archetypal Great Mother who in one of her many manifesta- tions appears as weaver of the threads of life. ° By the time Marlow discovers on the wall of the company station in the Congo Kurtz's painting of a draped, sinister-looking, blindfolded woman, holding a lighted torch against a dark background, regions of the psyche have been reached where the laws of the outer world cease to matter, regions which can be compared to the underworld guarded by a version of Diana Lucifera, the Great Goddess in her role of the iiQ Terrible Mother. y The final part of Marlow's journey up the river and through forests, both of which are maternal symbols often associated with regeneration and rebirth,^ suggests a sexual penetration toward the womb of life, the central

47. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 55. 48. Neumann, The Great Mother, p. 227.

49. Ibid., pp. 160-162.

50. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, pp. 218-219. female symbol for the dark creative areas of the psyche. Neumann compares these psychic regions to primordial swamps which harbor "everywhere mothers and suckling cubs, being born, growing, changing, devouring and devoured, killing and dying" but which nevertheless represent the original psychic situation and an experience of the female principle on the deepest psychic levels.Marlow's sojourn in the depth of these regions can be considered the period of gestation of a new personality in the matrices of life which precedes the re-emergence or rebirth of a strength­ ened and enlightened personality. His increasing empathy with the African natives is part of his process of estab­ lishing contact with fundamental truths about life. Yet such a regression is not without its dangers, for the deep unconscious is forever threatening to impose its primeval urges upon those whose moral nature is not sustained by a fortifying code, an activity or a belief. Marlow is saved from depersonalization and, perhaps, from ultimate destruc­ tion primarily by keeping his mind on his mission and his 52 boat. He even admits that he might have joined tribal activities had he not been too busy trying to fix leaky

51. Neumann, The Great Mother, p. 52. 52. For greater detail see Anthony Low, "Heart of Darkness: The Search for an Occupation," English.Litera­ ture in Transition, XII (1969), 8. 95 steam pipes. He also states that an emotional bond existed between himself and the native helmsman who was killed in the ambush of the boat; thus he shows that he is aware of the subtle threat which the Dark Continent poses to his European mind. Kurtz, however, who was not aware of this danger, has been adopted by the wilderness--or by the Archetypal Feminine in her role as the Terrible Mother—and has become a pampered favorite; ultimately he even presides over savage rites and tribal midnight orgies. Human heads are planted on sticks around Kurtz's hut; Africa has indeed "... drawn him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions."53 When Marlow finally arrives at the inner station he finds Kurtz's body wasted almost beyond recognition. But he has expected that; he has always thought of Kurtz more as a voice than as a man--a voice which would speak to him with profundity from the darkness, as indeed it does, for Kurtz has learned the truth in Africa, the truth about him­ self and all men. What Marlow has not expected, however, is the degree to which Kurtz has regressed from all norms of civilized behavior and become depersonalized. Kurtz has gone mad, ". . .he had kicked himself loose of the earth," and what he had to say was terrifying because it had behind

53- Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 144. 96 it ". . . the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares." And by empathetic identification with Kurtz, by looking through the eyes of a man who had "... concentrated . . . upon himself with horrible intensity . . ." Marlow receives his initiation Rh. • into the deepest secrets of life. He realizes that he too might have become obsessed by the wilderness, i. e., by the contents of the deepest psyche, and become a devil, a man devoid of all responsibility, morality and humanity— and driven by an infeiTial will alone. This is the terrible illumination Marlow receives through Kurtz, a knowledge of the potential hell in the heart of every man.-^ His understanding of what happened to Kurtz enables Marlow not only to escape a similar fate but also to become and to remain the master of himself and his own actions. Marlow now realizes that he and most men cannot handle absolute freedom because it means anarchy, nihilism and loss of self-control; and that for his sanity's sake man must live in relation to something outside himself, a redeeming belief in some idea perhaps, "... something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer sacrifice to. . . ."56 £ white man living alone and without saving

54. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 144. 55. For an excellent, brief discussion of this generally accepted view, see Thale, '354. 56. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories,- p. 51. 97 notions in the wilderness otherwise falls prey to his own vacuity or to inherent evil which goads him on from below, Bernard C. Meyer points out that indeed, . . . there are circumstances under which a man, even a good man, may be hard put to resist revert­ ing to the beast which lies dormant within every­ one. That-which distinguishes. Kurtz from Marlojy, therefore, is not a difference in their basic primitive impulses, but in their ability or willing­ ness to resist them. Stripped of these defenses against temptation, Kurtz and Marlow are one and the same--"secret sharers" of the same primitive core.57 This, then, is how Marlow reaches a degree of self- awareness in "Heart of Darkness" which Jim, he himself in Lord Jim, or Emil Sinclair never achieves. He now under­ stands that devils like Brown, Kromer or Kurtz are men obsessed by primordial evil which expresses itself through them without ever becoming intelligible to their rational minds. But while Brown and Kromer are essentially faceless personifications of primordial evil inherent in man and thus have no reflective moral consciousness, Kurtz is never completely indifferent to existing social norms. Thus, 58 implicit in his last cry, "The Horrorl The HorrorI may well have been the admission of the fact that he knew him­ self condemned by his fellow men. In the opinion of most critics, however, Kurtz's final vision is more inclusive;

57. Bernard C. Meyer, Joseph Conrad: A Psycho­ analytical Biography (Princeton, N. J., 1967), p. 15b.

58. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 149. it reflects his belated recognition of the monstrosity active deep in all human nature.^ But while Kurtz dies, it is the fate of Marlow, who also peeped over the edge and caught a chilling glimpse of "all the hearts that beat in the darkness . . . to live with the knowledge he has acquired. Thus he resembles the classical hero re-emerging from the underworld--or the womb of life—when he returns to Europe as a man with a new dimension of knowledge and truth. There he finds that the wisdom he has brought back from Africa sets him apart from his fellow men. Now that he knows the savage face of reality, normal existence has become an empty sham. Brussels, a center of civilization, seems a "sepulchral city," while the customary hustle and bustle of its inhabitants is irritating and repugnant to him. In spite of such feelings, however, Marlow has not become a misanthrope; ultimately he is a compassionate man who realizes that not many people could bear the sight of

59. Thale, 35^, represents most critics as he argues that "... Kurtz' cry is more than self knowledge, more than an.insight into the depth of his own evil. It is an insight into the potentialities in all men." To some critics, however, it means just the opposite. Osborne Andreas, Joseph Conrad; A Study in Non-Conformity (New York, 1962), pp. 13&-139, for example, interprets Kurtz's cry not as a recantation but as its opposite, a perverse expression of the intense happiness or fullness of life he experienced in Africa.

60. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 151. 99 naked truth and must be upheld by romantic dreams; that a blissful ignorance of the true nature of life is essential to their welfare. Thus when he meets Kurtz's fiancee, whose faith is rooted in the illusion that her beloved was a one-dimensional "good" and "great" man, he knows that to reveal the truth about Kurtz would destroy her. Thus he decides to preserve her memory of Kurtz with a lie and withholds from this pale, faithful Christian girl, this mate of only Kurtz's conscious self, all information of his recent activities in Africa; nor does he tell her that Kurtz also loved an African queen, "... savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent . . ." —a woman capable of being a mate to the dark, unconscious side of his per­ sonality; and finally when Kurtz's fiancee anxiously begs him to give her "... something—something—to--to live with," Marlow half angrily, half pityingly complies and gives his studied answer: "the last word he pronounced was—your name."^ Truth, of course, does not matter to a desperate romantic. It was not crucial to any of the Con- radian and Hessean romantic evaders of life discussed in

61. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, pp. 135- 136. 62. Ibid., p. l6l. However, it may also be possible that, at a deeper level, Kurtz's cry "The Horror," is the woman's name, for his confrontation with the Great . Mother is, after all, an experience of all the moral polar­ ities within civilized man. 100 Chapter II, and it matters even less to Kurtz's fiancee, who lives in a womb-tomb-like room as withdrawn from outer reality as does Kurtz's "African queen" in the jungles of the Congo region. As Marlow tells of his conversation with Kurtz's fiancee he describes this room in imagery suggest­ ing ever-increasing darkness and looming death (as a "mausoleum" containing a piano that looked like a "sar­ cophagus") which suggests that only such isolation-in- darkness can foster the blind faith that represents the strength of such women. To Marlow, however, who has suc­ ceeded in further liberating his male consciousness from the maternal unconscious during his hard and painful struggle in Africa, truth means life. He finds the death­ like blindness of Kurtz's fiancee almost unbearable and is tempted to tell her the facts about Kurtz after all; but then he definitely decides against it: "But I couldn't. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark—too dark altogether. Thus in this final opposition of conscious and unconscious values at the end of "Heart of Darkness," the ordinary connotations of good and evil, of light and dark, truth and falsehood, have been completely rearranged, often reversed. To be innocent or attuned only to the "facts," mores and rationalizations of European commercial society

63. Conrad, Youth and Two Other Stories, p. 162. 101 means to vegetate in darkness, to be a dead soul; but to be also aware of the truth represented by Africa and darkness means to be fully conscious and alive,, fully human—and free. Kurtz had almost achieved this state, and failed only because he knew no moderation. Marlow, however, strikes a balance and as a result attains a greatly ex­ panded apprehension of reality and truth. He is now an individual in his own right, a man who has transcended narrow egotism and has, like Emil Sinclair at the end of Demian, attained wholeness as a conscious individual as well as a collective human being. But while, as mentioned, the confrontation with primordial evil was glossed over in Demian, Marlow has become fully cognizant of the evil in­ herent in individual men and in their collective blindness. As an in-depth exploration of human complexity, then, "Heart of Darkness" is more adequate than Demian not only because it deals more extensively in imagery which conveys the dangers of such an inward journey for modern man, but also because its technique and structure match the nature and intensity of the internal involvement experi­ enced by civilized man during the encounter with his primi­ tive self. While Hesse maintains the narrative progression of his novel mainly through advancing the first-person narrator from one (perhaps too obvious) approximation of an archetypal figure to another until he reaches his ideal 102 self-concept, Conrad's allegorical river-journey is not so obvious a self-revelation and not so deceptively conclusive. The all-too-timely intervention of the omniscient Demian at critical mements saves Sinclair from having to make the decisions and experience the struggle and suffering in con­ crete situations which make Marlow an easily believable hero. The repugnance and horror xvhich a civilized person normally feels in an encounter with his darker, more primitive self, and which is fully developed in "Heart of Darkness," is more verbalized in Demian than it is ex­ pressed in narrative action. This is especially true of the horror which Sinclair feels when he perceives the sexual elements inherent in the maternal embrace of Prau Eva, who reminds him not only of his own mother and of his friend Demian, but also, and perhaps more so, of the amorality and darkness which exist within himself. The emergence of a new dimension of awareness, finally, neces­ sitates the displacement of other psychological elements or the filling of a void, so to speak, with an unknown quantity. This is hardly conceivable without entailing an element of struggle or at least a state of apprehension or dread. That the encounter between Marlow and Kurtz (i. e., of the ego and the lower self) should be accompanied by more violence than the final integration of Sinclair and Demian (i. e., of the ego and the higher self) is easily 103 conceivable, but even here at least some of the tensions expressed in such thematically comparable works as Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot, The Duino Elegies of Rainer Maria Rilke, or in various novels of Graham Greene would be ex­ pected. At any rate, it seems that Conrad was more success­ ful in solving such technical problems in "Heart of

Darkness" than was Hesse in Demian and that, as a result, Marlow must be considered a more convincing artistic crea­ tion than Emil Sinclair. But this does not imply that Conrad has also solved the adjustment problems his inte­ grated protagonist has to face after his return from

Africa. In his native society Marlow is now faced with the problem of how to live with what he knows, and finds that the attainment of a high degree of consciousness is both a blessing- and a curse, for it isolates him from his fellow men who, naturally enough, cannot share his Weltanschauung. He finds himself in the position of a man who, in spite of his disillusionment with the way of life and the values of these sub-men, would probably suffer the fate of Kurtz if he were to permit himself to be totally separated from them.^^ He is now an outsider in a world which has no

64. Harsh as this sounds, it seems to represent Conrad's view since, according to Guerard, p. 33j Conrad, before his Congo venture, considered himself ". . .a mere animal" and since the people he meets after his return still reflect his former lack of awareness. 104 understanding of the psychological and intellectual dilemma of a man who can no longer function within the simple moral scheme of normal existence and resembles very much the

alienated man whose complaint against his contemporaries Colin Wilson defines as follows: The Outsider's case against society is very clear. All men and women have . . . dangerous, unnarnable impulses, yet they keep up a pretence, to them­ selves, to others; their respectability, their philosophy, their religion, are all attempts to gloss over, to make look civilized and rational something that is savage, unorganized, irrational. He is an Outsider because he stands for Truth.°5 The question of how the fully conscious man can best live among his largely unaware and unsuspecting con­ temporaries is not answered by Conrad in "Heart of Dark­ ness." But Hesse enters into a deeper exploration of the question in a work with many parallels to "Heart of Darkness" in Steppenwolf, technically his most complicated work and one of the most significant literary documents of this century. Like "Heart of Darkness," Steppenwolf is an explora­ tion of the human psyche in which the protagonist pene­ trates to depths not fathomed in Demian and returns, like

Conrad's Marlow, a changed and wiser man. However, while Marlow, before his journey to the Congo, is still rela­ tively well-attuned to his society and merely shows more

65. Colin Wilson, The Outsider (Boston, 1965), P. 13. 105 sensitivity and intellectual capacity than most other Europeansj Harry Haller, his counterpart in Steppenwolf, is from the very beginning of the novel more of an outsider as defined by Wilson, a serious seeker after truth and the meaning of life, living among insensitive, materialistic and intellectually unmotivated Burger. Since Steppenwolf^ is generally seen as a sequel to the self-exploration which Hesse began with Demian, it is perhaps not surprising to find that Harry Haller, the protagonist, resembles a middle-aged Emil Sinclair who lives as a recluse in cluttered rooms of otherwise immacu­ lately kept bourgeois homes. According to the sober nephew of Haller1s landlady, whose objective depiction of Haller comprises the first part of the novel, Haller merely wastes his time reading, smoking, drinking wine and listening to music. But the manuscripts Haller left behind, upon which this surprisingly clearsighted young man's opinions of him are based, also reveal that the passivity of this strange tenant was in reality only external, while on the subjective level he was in the midst of a severe psychological crisis.

66. The term "Steppenwolf" means, literally, "wolf of the steppes"; but as Zioll-cowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, p. 179,.points out, it is best understood as depict­ ing the modern intellectual, represented by Harry Haller, who cannot accept or conform to traditional modes of be­ havior and thought and whose skepticism and despair make him feel "... like a wolf among the lambs of bourgeois society ..." because his doubting and probing threatens all their cherished beliefs, ideas, and, in fact, their entire mode of life. 106

The young commentator explains Haller's withdrawal from society mainly as the result of a state of despair caused by his keen analytical mind and his excessively

skeptical intelligence which: . . . durchdrang unsre ganze Zeit, das ganze betriebsame Getue, die ganze Streberei, die ganze Eitelkeit, das ganze oberflachliche'Spiel einer eingebildeten, seichten Geistigkeit . . . bis ins Herz alles Menschentums. . . .°7 (. . . pierced our whole epoch, its whole ovewrought activity, the whole surge and strife, the whole vanity, the whole super­ ficial play of a shallow, conceited intel­ lectuality . . . including the basic nature of all mankind. . . .) At this stage Haller resembles Marlow at the end of "Heart of Darkness" in that he is all too clearly cognizant of the essential hollovmess of all human endeavor and cul­ tural values, so that he finds almost nothing left to believe in or to identify himself with. Because of this spiritual emptiness he feels drawn to the world of the bourgeoisie even though he detests their mediocrity and narrowness. Their fetish of duty, devotion, order and cleanliness sets at least some boundaries against chaos and gives a superficial sense of security and purpose which enables them to hold out against an otherwise meaningless existence. In Conradian fiction the adherence to some bourgeois virtues is part of Jim's and Marlow's code and

67. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 191-192. 107 saves other white colonials from being overcome by Africa, as, for example, the impeccably groomed chief accountant of the muddled company station in "Heart of Darkness." But the aging Steppenwolf is not capable of living according to such outwardly imposed rules. In addition to experiencing intellectual bankruptcy he is also plagued by the keen awareness of his gradually deteriorating body and exists in a tortured state of self-contempt and 'indecision--ein Genie des Leidens (a genius of suffering) as his landlady's nephew calls him^S—at the fringe of bourgeois society. Haller's sense of alienation and his seemingly pointless existence finally become so oppressive that he finds life tolerable only because he promises himself the luxury of committing suicide on his fiftieth birthday. But as in Conrad's fiction, a time of crisis often precedes a test, a submersion in "the destructive element," as Stein puts it in Lord Jim. Haller, quoting Novalis, puts it almost the same way. "Most men will not swim before they are able to," he tells his landlady's nephew.^9 Like Stein, Haller knows that it is perfectly natural to want to cling to the life one is accustomed to, but he also knows that self-realization, the equivalent of salvation for Haller as for Jim, is not possible unless he lets go

68. Hesse, Gesammelte Schrif'ten, IV, 193.

69. Ibid., 199. 108 and submits himself to "the destructive element," i. e., to life in its entirety. To Jim this "trial by water" means having to test his idealistic self-concept against the reality of life in Patusan; to Haller it means more specif­ ically having to face subjective reality or, as he sees it, being willing to think.'''0 This, of course, is precisely what the bourgeoisie is not willing to do, for it is fraught with danger. Haller knows this and even warns his young acquaintance of it, for he states that ". . .he who thinks has bartered the solid earth for the water . . . and one day he will drown."71 But Haller, like Leggatt in "The Secret Sharer," takes his chances and strikes out courage­ ously because he too sees no other alternative for himself. Haller's period of submersion begins while he is wandering through a familiar alley one night, when he becomes aware of a mysterious door in a normally blank wall; above this door he sees in blurred and almost illegible fluorescent letters the words:

70. This comparison may serve as an illustration of a difference between Conrad's and Hesse's artistic method. While Conrad in Lord Jim (as he usually does) consistently operates on several levels of reality, so that Patusan is clearly a fictional locality as well as a symbol of the unconscious, Hesse in Steppenwolf, as in most of his later novels, keeps his transparent action on the objective plane to a bare minimum and makes no great attempt to weave his descent-motif into an objective narrative.

71. Hesse, Gesammelte Schrlften, IV, 199. 109 Magisches Theater Eintritt nicht fur jederrnann * • • Nur—fur—Ver—ruckte72

(Magic Theater Admission not for Everyone « • • For Madmen Only) The letters and the door vanish as he tries to inspect them more closely. However, Haller is not greatly disturbed by this, for he correctly interprets the door and the inscription as a message from the other world whose existence is no secret to him but is not even suspected by the regular Burger. In fact, the wolfish part of his nature is positively elated by the prospect of finding unorthodox adventures which would enable it to express itself; and thus Haller spends the rest of the night elated and expectant until indeed a further message from the other world reaches him in the form of a pamphlet entitled Tralctat vom Steppenwolf. Nicht fur Jederrnann (Treatise on the Steppenwolf. Not for Everyone).^ This treatise pro­ vides a third, hypothetical view of Haller and is in many respects comparable to a map through a new territory which he must take and experience before he can, like Marlow, as­ similate its lessons and gain a needed new perspective on life.

72. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 215. 73. Ibid., 224. 110 Haller learns from reading the tract what Marlow sensed all along, namely that his first step toward integrity and wisdom must begin itfith his willingness to adjust himself to the fact that he is not a normal man but one of those superior and tragic souls who are fated to spend their lives in the pursuit of the great and eternal truths of existence.7^ In this pursuit Haller must permit the wolfish part of his nature to express itself more freely because life in its fullness cannot be apprehended by limiting the range of experience to the restricted areas which the Burger considers safe. Hesse's position on the subject of self-development, then, is in perfect agreement with that of Conrad; both writers state that those who feel compelled to strive for truth must find the courage to leave the sheltering bourgeois adherence to the position of moderation upon which the preservation of the Burger's ego depends and become intimately acquainted with the regions of chaos which the Burger condemns. Evil must be experi­ enced and accepted as an inherent part of existence before a high degree of transcendence and individuation can be achieved.75 Haller's road thus leads through the same dark

74. V/ilson, p. 59, sees Haller's unreconciled nature as a source of potential greatness which will be realized as soon as, or in moments when, reconciliation between the opposing halves of his nature is achieved.

75. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, pp. 186-187. Ill regions of the human psyche which are explored by Marlow in "Heart of Darkness" and which, after revealing the truth about human nature, induce a more detached perspective on life. Haller's actual journey into the deep realms of the human psyche is not portrayed, like that of Marl ox-;, as an allegorical venture to another, darker continent, but has as its setting the underworld of the European city in which he lives. His pattern of experiences, however, resembles the adventures of Marlow in some remarkable ways. Once he leaves the middle-class world of his European city with all its day-time activities and departs for the darker regions of night-town, he too finds that everything which happens to him increasingly assumes dimensions of unreality and irrationality. And like Marlow, Haller adapts to his changing environment mainly because he realizes that he is following his destiny and has really little choice. But while Marlow becomes easily and naturally attuned to the conditions and inhabitants of the Dark Continent, Haller finds it more difficult to accept the•atmosphere and deni­ zens of his sphere of darkness because he must conquer some long-standing inhibitions. While Marlow feels from the beginning a mysterious attraction to "the wild and passion­ ate uproar" along the shores of the Congo River, Haller has to overcome a long-standing aversion to decadent music 112 before he can register a corresponding resonance within himself to the sound of jazz music he hears coming from the dance hall. But finally, while listening to those lively tunes, "... heiss und roh wie der Dampf von rohem

Pleisch . . ."76 (h0t; and raw as the steam of raw flesh), he reluctantly admits to himself that his instinctive nature registers it, and not unpleasantly, as an appeal of honest sensuality. And it appeals to him increasingly more, for since it is primitive it is sincere, childishly happy and rejuvenating; he senses in it a primitive will to live which he feels is the gift of the Negro to tired Europeans .77 The next phase of Haller's initiation into the mysteries of the dark begins one evening when he is in a suicidal mood with a chance meeting with Hermine, an unpoetic high-class prostitute at the bar and brothel Zum Schwarzen Adler to which he was misdirected while looking for a regular dance hall. Hermine, who is naturally com­ passionate and has had long experience with men as desper­ ate as Haller, soon perceives the source of his agonies, becomes genuinely interested in him and decides to give him more abundant life by teaching him to enjoy the simple pleasures of the flesh. She feels that the education of

Haller's senses, in spite of his long-standing aversion to

76. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 220. 77. Ibid., 221. 113 physical involvements, must be of prime importance if he is to be restored to life and begins by giving him lessons in ballroom dancing. This can be considered a public as well as a symbolic enactment of sexuality.Later, when the reluctant Haller is sufficiently pre-conditioned by Hermine, Maria, the voluptuous young prostitute who plays a role in Haller's life similar to that of the "African Queen" in the life of Kurtz, introduces him to further regions of the dark sphere of his psyche by teaching him to enjoy sensual experience and sexual expression. To Haller this awaken­ ing of his long suppressed sexuality, this ability

". . . Kind und Tier zu sein in der Unschuld des

Geschlechts . . ."79 # . to be both child and beast in the innocence of sex . . .), is equivalent to a rebirthj it literally restores his interest in life. As Haller becomes better attuned to the dark world of Hermine and Maria he receives essentially the same education Marlow receives on his way toward Kurtz. His exposure to pre­ viously ignored aspects of life and his own personality leads to an expansion of awareness and to self-acceptance and love which is the prerequisite for transcendence and for the ability to live not only in the light of cold truth

78. Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, trans. Jean Riviere (New York, 1957), p.

79. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 350. 114 but also In harmony with oneself and other men. This is, after all, what Haller aspires to. The culmination of Haller1s journey within, how­ ever, begins during a Faschingsball, a masked ball in the basement bar of an inn which is decorated to resemble hell and over which the musicians preside as devils. Here he meets Hermine, who is dressed as a young man and who thus O *1 increases her resemblance of his boyhood friend Hermann.

80. Egon Schwarz, "Zur Erklarung von Hesses Step- penwolf," Monatshefte, LIII.(April-May 1961), 194. While Hesse in Steppenwolf almost celebrates sexuality, Conrad, as elsewhere, refrains from discussing this subject openly in "Heart of Darkness." Yet, as mentioned, in terms of psychological symbolism Marlow's journey clearly implies sexual activity, for, according to Freud, p. 164, The complicated topography of the female sexual organs accounts for their often being represented by a landscape with rocks, woods and water, whilst the imposing mechanism of the male sexual apparatus lends it£selfj to symbolization by all kinds of complicated and indescribable machinery £i. e., Marlow's preoccupation with broken gadgetry, leak­ ing steampipes, and keeping his boat fit 3. In either case, Haller1s overt and Marlow's implicit sexual awakening is related to their increased self-acceptance and according to Freud, p. 409, should (as it does) lead to a physical and psychological liberation generally. 81. Hesse makes frequent use of such allusions to the fact that Hermine represents his suppressed lower self and that all external action between Haller and her must be understood as having its psychological correlation in him­ self. Like Conrad, Hesse is incapable of portraying a woman convincingly, but while, as Felix Sper, "The Cream of Conrad," Poet Lore, XXXVIII, Autumn (1927), 423* points out, Conrad ". . . can only worship and rhapsodize" women and their role in life, Hesse does not hesitate to discuss their sexual function and uses them often as symbols of the contrasexual aspects of man's psyche. 115 Together with her he indulges in the use of various intoxi­ cants, frolics and dances all night until finally all sense of "identity and reality vanishes in a blissful loss of the sense of separateness: Ich war nicht mehr ich, meine Personlichkeit war aufgelost im Festrausch wie Salz im V/asser. Ich tanzte -mit dieser oder jener Frau, aber nicht nur sie war es, die ich im Arm hatte . . . alle die andern Frauen mit, die im selben Saal, im selben Tanz, in derselben Musik wie ich schwammen . . . alle gehorten mir, alien gehorte ich, alle hatten wir an einander teil und auch die Manner waren mir nicht fremd, ihr Lacheln das meine, -ihr Werben das meine, meines das ihre.82 (I was no longer myself. My personality was dissolved in the intoxication of these festivities like salt in water. I danced with this woman or that, but it was not she alone whom I held in my arm . . . all the other women also, who danced in this same hall, the same dance, to the same music . . . all belonged to me, and I to them. All of us had part in one another. And the men too were no strangers to me; their smile v/as mine, and mine their wooing and theirs mine.) This symbolic dissociation of the ego is followed by Haller's nuptial dance with Hermine, which critics seem to agree represents the imminent mystical union of the con­ scious and unconscious aspects of Haller1s personality, and implies that Haller finally has learned to embrace and to affirm both realms, good and evil, and light and dark, as necessary and dynamic poles of existence.^

82. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 362-363.

S3. Freedman, p. 86. 116 The degree of self-knowledge achieved by Haller at this stage of Steppenwolf corresponds approximately to that of Marlow in "Heart of Darkness" after he has fully accepted the fact that instinctive behavior as displayed by the natives is not evil per se and, at any rate, resembles the conditions existing in his own psyche. This disturbing knowledge brings both Marlow and Haller closer to finding philosophical detachment and disenchanted serenity, but before Haller can reach this state he must, like Marlow, penetrate to the very center of darkness and meet his Kurtz, the person through whom he can become acquainted with the very darkest potentialities of human nature and himself. To Haller this creatur'e of the abyss is Hermine's friend Pablo, the handsome jazz musician and sensual Naturmensch (natural man) who has already proposed homo­ sexuality to Haller and given him and Hermine drugs. Pablo appears when dawn breaks (on the level of the narrative as well as symbolically) and invites the drugged couple to his Magic Theater, a state of mind in which the worlds of reality and imagination interpenetrate and in which sensuous and spiritual experiences have the same value. Here Haller experiences his ultimate self-encounter when the small mirrors into which Pablo has him gaze com­ bine to reveal, at first, the true picture of his dual per­ sonality, but then separate again and, in the form of a 117 penny arcade with its numerous booths on both sides, indicate the many potentialities and possible forms of self-experience and expression open to him or coexisting in the depth of his own nature. Hesse deviates at this point from the traditional way of depicting the human psyche as consisting of two spheres whose contradictory demands cause much distress and self-division. The classical statement of this dilemma is probably best expressed by Goethe in Faust's lament: Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust, die eine will sich von der andern trennen; die eine halt in derber Liebeslust sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organenj die andre hebt gewaltsam sich von Dust zu den Gefielden hoher Ahnen.84 (Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast, each seeks severance from the other; the one, with robust lust for love clings to the world with clutching limbs, the other fiercely rises from the dust toward high ancestral regions.) Haller's drug-induced glance into the chaos of his own soul, however, reveals that there are not two irrecon­ cilable halves but an almost indefinite number of separate egos which can be assembled from the fragments of the dissociated personality. Haller sees precisely that done to himself in various side shows of the Magic Theater by a

84. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part I, ed. R. M. S. Heffner, Helmut Rehder and W. F. Twaddel (Boston, 1954), p. 200. Egon Schwarz, p. 192, considers this par­ ticular passage from Faust as a hypothetical center of Steppenwolf. 118 man using a mirror on a kind of chessboard. Mark Boulby has pointed out that Hesse here corrects the error of con­ ventional psychology, which assumes that there is only one proper way in which a given personality can develop.^ Other possibilities open to Haller, or psychologi­ cal processes acting in him, are symbolically presented in his dream-state experiences through various instinctive involvements and gratifications whose existence in his nature he did not previously suspect. Perhaps his most important discovery is that the magic theater of his own psyche contains not only libidinous and evil impulses, but also divine inspiration, that it is the world not only of Hermine, Maria and Pablo, but also of the Immortals. But this insight also causes his conditional failure near the end of Steppenwolf, for after meeting Mozart he feels sud­ denly that he must decide where his allegiance is to be; he decides for the world of the Immortals and when, in a booth labeled "How to Kill by Love," he perceives the naked, sleeping Hermine who has made love to Pablo on the carpet, he stabs her in a fit of jealousy and disgust. Ernst Rose suggests that this symbolic murder of his sensual nature by his mind indicates that he still has not learned that man cannot be free as long as he is fettered by a bourgeois

85. Boulby, p. 196. 119 conscience, nor can he live as a pure spirit.^ And that, of course, is Hesse's "message," if one can call it that. It is apparent at this point in Steppenwolf that Hesse modifies the oversimplified description of the Jungian process of individuation given in Demlan, where Emil Sinclair proceeds on his path toward selfhood without having come-to grips with the personification of his inner darkness, Kromer. As in "Heart of Darkness," in Steppen­ wolf little is glossed over. Even though Hesse's novel does not portray the intensity of the conflict between the conscience-bearing rational mind and the dark components of the psyche which is an integral part of Conrad's tale, it is understood that personifications of dark psychic con­ tents function according to their own laws and cannot be reasoned with. This is shown during Jim's confrontation with Brown and by Demian's handling of Kromer. The problem these figures from the sphere of darkness and evil pose to the conscious mind is perhaps best stated in all its com­ plexity by Hugo Ball: Wenn es gelange, den Feind im eigenen Innern zu packen und aufzulosen, die treibende vitale Kraft auf eine plausible Formel zu bringen . . . damit ware fur die Folge unliebsamen Uberraschungen von der Instinktseite hervorgebeugt.• Damit ware . . . das Tier im Menschen zutage gefordert und,- wer weiss, vielleicht gebrochen . . vor dessen gescharften Sinnen es lceine intellektualischen

86. Rose, p. 91. 120 Kunststiicke und mogelnden Flausen gibt—das ist der Ernst des Buehes. (If it were only possible to seize and dis­ solve the enemy within, to explain this motivating vital force in a plausible way . . . disagreeable surprises from the sphere of the instincts could be forestalled. The animal in man whose more acute senses are not deceived by intellectual tricks or other deceptive humbug could thereby be brought into the light and perhaps tamed--that is the message of the book.) But this is unfortunately not possible, and in this impos­ sibility lies the seriousness of the novel,®''' Haller, in his murder of Hermine, has proved that he has not, after all, escaped the detrimental influence of his "evil" side but rather was motivated by it. For this he is condemned by a court of Immortals; they reprimand him for still tak­ ing appearances for reality and for not really trying to look for the underlying unity of all things. Finally, in spite of the fact that the overly-idealistic Haller's cour't scene befits his crime (he is standing trial in a prison before a guillotine), the sentence he receives is in accord with the point of view of the Immortals--instead of being condemned to die, his verdict demands that he is to go on living and to strive for the attainment of a unified self. His immediate punishment is being laughed at by the Immortals, and Mozart's final advice to Haller is:

87. Ball, pp. 213-214. 121

Nehmen Sie endlich Vernunft an I Sie sollen leben, und Sie sollen das Lachen lernen. Sie sollen die verfluchte Radiomusik des Lebens anhoren lernen, sollen den Geist hinter ihr verehren,- sollen uber den Klimbim in ihr lachen lernen. Fertig, mehr wird nicht von Ihnen verlangt.88 (At long last come to your senses. You must learn to live and to laugh. You must • learn to bear the damnable radio music of life, to appreciate the spirit behind it and to laugh about the nonsense noises in it. That is all that is asked of you.) Thus even though Steppenwolf does not offer a for­ mal solution to the problem of the alienated intellectual in bourgeois society, it does offer a temporary solution, a modus vivendi, namely the quality of humor which Haller so obviously lacks.^9 jn this sense Steppenwolf ends on a different note from "Heart of Darkness": Marlow returns from his journey within with his former personality intact but so burdened by his tragic understanding of the reali­ ties of life and human nature that he can function in his former environment only by assuming an attitude of ironic aloofness and Buddha-like philosophical acceptance. Haller, on the other hand, returns from an almost identical descent, during which his former personality has been shat­ tered but then reassembled, ready to make a blessing of

88. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 413-414. 89. Seymour L. Flaxman's "Per Steppenwolf: Hesse's Portrait of the Intellectual," Modern Language Quarterly, XV (195^), 3^9-358, seems a particularly lucid analysis of this aspect of Steppenwolf. 122 sorts out of the insights that are a burden to Marlow. Steppenwolf thus ends on a more optimistic note than does "Heart of Darkness," and Hesse's light irony at the end of the novel seems to reflect much less despair or stoic res­ ignation than Conrad's pensive mood. Haller learns from the Immortals that there is an underlying unity of all things and that all appearances are essentially illusions. And when he comes to realize in the final scene, "Harry's Execution," that even such seemingly unrelated characters as Mozart and Pablo are essentially one, he ceases to take himself too seriously and thereby finds the beginning of the path which leads to their crystal-clear and flameless- hot humor. This enables him to reconcile the Haller- Steppenwolf dichotomy in himself without the struggle the similar integration of opposites requires in "Heart of Darkness." Egon Schwartz, who approaches the same question in a more specific vein, explains that Haller's plan for salvation would require initially a cheerful affirmation of his role as an outsider and thereafter the courage to ignore and treat as faulty all moral precepts taught to him by his culture which posit the antagonism and irreconcil­ ability between body and soul. He should then affirm the modes of sexual and emotional self-expression and thereby recover his sense of youth, of spontaneity and of the joy 123 of life.Such a "plan of salvation/' of course, might not even have occurred to Conrad, who lived and wrote in an essentially puritanical milieu. At any rate, it is apparent that in Steppenwolf Hesse abandons or at least reconsiders the belief tenta­ tively expressed in Demlan that the Jungian process of .individuation is an adequate means for restoring a sense of purpose and meaning to the alienated modern intellectual. Hesse apparently now feels that the essentially romantic self-love implied by this process ultimately brings men to a dead end, or even to a sort of spiritual suicide, for it seems to discourage further striving. Joseph Conrad, on the other hand, who in some ways anticipates Jungian concepts and emphasizes the problems of the intelligent outsider's functional existence in the world, would probably have con­ sidered the Jungian goal of attaining self-consciousness and of awareness of reality and truth adequate, had it been formulated in his time.

90. Schwarz, 198. CHAPTER IV

THE QUEST FOR WHOLENESS BEYOND EVIL

Having examined in their fiction the nature of what is traditionally considered evil, Conrad and Hesse, each in his own way, came to the realization that adversity, vio­ lence, malevolence, depravity, or darkness are by no means always or exclusively manifestations of the negative and destructive forces inherent in the universe and the nature of man but have a positive function as well. Evil, quali­ fied and clarified,is finally seen by both authors as an essential and integral aspect of life which prevents stag­ nation and creates conditions that afford or force upon given characters opportunities for growth they would not have otherwise, and through which they can rise to significance and true manhood. This does not mean, of course, that all Conradian and Hessean characters benefit from their contact with the forces of evil. Some of them, as has been shown, are over­ whelmed by a sudden onslaught of human depravity or perish because of their inability to recognize and control the wilderness of contradictory and self-destructive impulses within themselves. Others are simply crushed by exces­ sively repressive institutions, or lose their will to live

12b 125 after having become too cognizant of their own ethical ambivalence and certain sordid realities behind modern civilization. Yet for most characters in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse the contact with evil is ultimately bene­ ficial, for it tends to activate their latent strength and fortifies their will to resist and to overcome. It must not, of course, be supposed that even con­ tinued confrontation with adversity necessarily leads all Conradian and Hessean characters to greater awareness. In what Thomas Moser calls the Conradian simple hero, the man who is characterized by courage and loyalty but who remains essentially unreflective, a dangerous situation elicits only an automatic, conditioned response; this is shown by such mariners as old Singleton of The Nigger of the Narcissus or Captain Eeard of "Youth.""1" These men react to danger without much reflection and according to time-honored codes which have been born out of a long struggle against the sea. Their strength lies in their undeviating devotion to duty and solidarity with which they resist chaos,, a p Conradian synonym for evil. In this category are also Conrad's military types, such as the French officer in charge of towing the Patna to safety in Lord Jim, DeCastel and Tomassov in "The Warrior's Soul," or the Polish

1. Moser, pp. 15-19. 2. Haugh, Joseph Conrad: Discovery in Design, p. 12. 126 nationalist Prince Roman. Such men unquestioningly accept grave personal risks in the name of honor and patriotism. And Conrad seems to respect this because, like the code of the sea, this attitude gives them the strength which man­ kind has always pitted against adversity and keeps them from becoming such hollow men as Almayer, Willems, Kurtz or Decoud, who perish largely because they lack a fortifying belief or code. Nevertheless, it seems clear that Conrad had no illusions about the limitations of his courageous but simple heroes, for in spite of the admiration he expresses for them he frequently treats them with a certain amount of irony. This seems to indicate a conviction that the exclusive adherence to heroic codes is simply an inade­ quate response in many situations, which is further under­ lined by the fact that the simple hero generally fails when he is confronted by a complex problem.^ Hesse's attitude toward characters who are capable only of stereotyped reactions in the face of calamity is often considerably less charitable than that of Conrad, for he does not normally value the virtues of simple courage and solidarity which impress the seaman and perhaps the residual Polish nationalist in Conrad. In fact, Hesse seems to have an acute fear of the dangers inherent in thoughtless attachment to dated codes and precepts, an

3. Moser, p. I9. attitude which, as mentioned, he sees personified in most members of the bourgeoisie, in many politicians and espe­ cially in the military, whom he considers directly respon­ sible for much of the suffering man must endure. Yet, like Conrad, Hesse admits that those who display stoic bravery in the face of disaster, even if they themselves have helped to cause it, deserve a certain measure of respect. And thus, in spite of the fact that Hesse views most out­ ward heroic assertion with deep skepticism, he seldom slights or condemns it. Occasionally he even expresses the belief that such insanity as the pointless killing of masses of soldier-victims during large-scale wars may have a positive result in that it brings many perceptive minds to the awareness that hatred and slaughter are simply no longer acceptable means for man to solve his problems.^ And to Hesse this is precisely where evil produces good, namely in that it induces in those who are capable of learning from suffering the desire to transcend, to think independently, and to evolve into moral and fully respon­ sible human beings who cannot easily be misused by others and who endeavor not to repeat past mistakes. The simple hero in the fiction of Hesse as well as in that of Conrad is, of course, incapable of such intel­ lectual and ethical self-assertion; it is the more

4. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 263. 128 psychologically complex characters of both authors who find this an inner necessity. These are almost always the pro­ tagonists who are destined to find self-knowledge and for whom the simple virtues of hard work and codified behavior are not sufficient. Their path generally leads to dimen­ sions of reality which give them more abundant life, even though the price they must pay for it is often their exclu­ sion from the common herd.^ And, as pointed out before, the increased awareness of such characters is attained mainly through their conscious acceptance and inclusion of the night side of life. Thus Marlow's contact with Kurtz leads him to a degree of insight and compassion he would not have attained otherwise, while Haller's meeting with Hermine and Pablo gives him an understanding of so-called evil and a mental flexibility to cope with it v/hich unre- flective characters simply cannot attain. Those protagonists in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse who finally attain life in a new dimension of under­ standing have in common the fact that they are not per­ mitted to dwell idly in their new world, for knowledge, if it is to be of real value, must be applied and used in relation to something outside the character who has attained it. But while Conrad consistently expresses this belief in

5. G. H. Bantock, "The Two 'Moralities' of Joseph Conrad," Essays in Criticism, III (April 1953)> 136, 129 his fiction, Hesse did not stress the virtue of involvement until his psychoanalytical sessions with Dr. Langer had brought him to the realization that knowledge which is used mainly for self-aggrandizement indicates romantic egotism and perhaps even a form of immaturity.^ Thereafter Hesse gradually transcended the nearly exclusive preoccupation with his subjective life so that in his later works, and especially in Die Morgenlandfahrt (The Journey to the East) and in Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game), the main characters appear as committed and responsible individuals whose existence derives its meaning from serving others and from working for the betterment of the human condition. Conrad does not share Hesse's optimism about the possibilities of improving the human lot or of inducing man to make meaningful changes in his habits and ways. But he nevertheless agrees that a given character can add signifi­ cance to his existence if he permits himself to be posi­ tively involved in the lives of others. In fact, it seems that many of his best-known protagonists are created for the illustration of this doctrine. Moreover, it seems certain that Conrad, like Hesse, conceives of the drive toward social involvement as an unavoidable principle of life which goads men into situations and encounters which they may rationally reject but through which they enrich

6. Gnefkow, p. 84. 130 their lives and mature. This theme has been consistently explored in Conrad's works and is perhaps best illustrated by the fate of Axel Heyst, in Victory. To Heystj Conrad's champion of detachment and non- involvement in life, all action and commitment are at first merely hooks baited with the illusion of success and happiness. "He who forms a tie is lost. The germ of cor­ ruption has entered into his soul." This is the philosoph­ ical premise upon which he bases the rationale for his solitary existence on the tropical island to which he has withdrawn.^ yet he finds that life permits no such aloof­ ness from participation and involvement. And thus this refined European aristocrat is a doomed man from the begin­ ning in that he is not permitted to live a strictly con­ scious and rational life on his shore opposite human existence. In a sense, of course, Heyst is committing treason against life itself by trying to exclude from his existence the instincts and impulses that motivate all action. Against his conscious desire life forces him to recognize and accept certain irrational elements in his nature which emerge through the influence of Lena, the forlorn English girl he rescues from a squalid existence among Zangiacomo's "performers." Heyst's vulnerability, i. e., Conrad's view

7. Conrad, Victory, pp. 199-200. 131 that philosophic detachment is an inadequate means of escaping bondage to a fallen world, is established early in the novel in the objectively depicted comic scenes in Schomberg's concert hall. Heyst's initial reaction to the vulgarity of the scene—the noise, the heat, the smoke, the smells and the garish colors—is an even more pronounced revulsion than that felt by Haller toward the dance halls and jazz bands in Steppenwolf. But like Haller, or like Marlow in "Heart of Darkness," Heyst feels stimulated by "this wild and passionate uproar." Something in him responds to it despite his conscious objections and acti­ vates particularly his sense of chivalry, which results in the rash act of abducting Lena. Heyst's and Lena's fate as well as their symbolic significance is then further revealed in typical Conradian fashion by depicting it from various points of view and at different points in time and location in an attempt to approximate, through literary methods and stylistic intri­ cacy, the complexity of the inner struggle which the objec­ tive action in Victory represents. The initial effect of Lena's presence upon Heyst is positive in that, as a per­ sonification of his suppressed inner life, she gives him a feeling of wholeness and a greater sense of his own reality than he has ever experienced before. The psychological process at v/ork here is similar to that by which Haller's 132 contact with Hermine restores his vitality and his sense of involvement with life. But while Hermine is in some ways wiser than Haller and can initiate him gradually into the dark aspects of existence, Lena is an unsophisticated child of the people who cannot even evoke in Heyst the ability to accept and love her fully and thereby to temper his sterile mental constructs with at least a modicum of the irrational. Had Heyst been able to accept Lena as Haller accepted Hermine he would probably have thereby derived the neces­ sary understanding of figures of the darkness to be able to cope with the desperados Mr. Jones, Ricardo and Pedro who come to despoil him of the hidden treasures they imagine to exist on the island. But since Heyst persists in his attempt to remain a mere observer of life, he can only watch the activities of this unholy trio with an increasing sense of resentment against becoming more deeply,enmeshed in life--". . . that commonest of all snares in which he „8 felt himself caught, seeing clearly the plot of plots. . . . In terms of psychodynamics the ensuing conflict between Heyst and Lena on the one hand and the Jones gang on the other is a symbolic reflection of the attempt of the conscious mind to prevent encroachment by irrational ele­ ments of human nature which are basically antagonistic to conscious values. But, as has been explained in Chapter III,

8. Conrad, Victory, p. 215. 133 a working compromise between the conscious and unconscious spheres of the human mind is an absolute necessity if mental rigidity as it exists in Heyst is to be prevented and if a healthy life-giving mental equilibrium is to be maintained. Psychiatrists consistently warn against an exclusive identification with rational values, for it is impossible to deny existence to the unconscious, since it is the source of all psychic energy. And if it is not granted suitable forms of manifestation in the objective world, it simply attacks from the rear to force a new alignment within the man's inner nature whereby it can play an appropriate role.9 That, of course, is precisely what Haller in Steppenwolf and Marlow in Lord Jim and "Heart of Darkness" are taught by life, and what Heyst, who persists in the rejection of the unconscious, does not realize until it is too late. It is not surprising that upon the arrival of the Jones trio the initiative for action switches from Heyst to Lena, for the confrontation forces much more adversity upon him than he is constitutionally capable of handling. But Lena, who like Haller's friend Hermine functions as the protagonist's personification of the positive life- asserting forces in man, is capable of decisive action when

9. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pp. 71-72. 134 it is required. Thus, at the showdown it is Lena who outwits the ferocious Ricardo while Heyst is neutralized by Mr. Jones. But she defends herself with great determina­ tion because she realizes that in spite of his impassivity Heyst, as representative of man's ideal values, must sur­ vive if life is to have and to keep a higher meaning for her. All the same, the fact that it is Lena who finally triumphs over the forces of evil and over the asceticism of Heyst seems a clear indication of Conrad's conviction that active and dedicated involvement in life is essential. Lena's accidental death after being hit by Jones' bullet does not detract from her accomplishment, for she dies with a victorious smile on her lips while Heyst remains a pained spectator who can only curse "his fastidious soul, which even at that moment kept the true cry of love from his lips in his infernal mistrust of all life."Conrad's argument for the virtue of commitment finds its final expression in Heyst's often quoted lament to Captain Davidson: "Ah, Davidson, woe to the man whose heart has not learned while 11 young to hope, to love—and to put its trust in life," and in the symbolic expression of spiritual bankruptcy by com­ mitting the body of Lena as well as his own to the purging flames of his burning bungalow.

10. Conrad, Victory, p. 406. 11. Ibid., p. 410. 135 Many critics see Victory also as a depiction of the symbolic conflict between the forces of good and evil for Heyst's soul. In this sense Jones is perhaps best seen as a representation of the devil while Lena, as her name indicates, is comparable to the Biblical Mary Magdalene attempting to serve her savior. But here too the victory to which the title refers is Lena's, for through her self­ less devotion she wins both physically and spiritually. She saves Heyst's life by disarming Ricardo and humanizes him by showing him the value of love, redeeming herself from her former life at the same time. Other critics interpret Heyst's refusal to live his former half-life again and his consequent ritualistic suicide after Lena's death as a 12 major moral triumph as well. But seen either way the symbolic victory of the novel is clearly that of the forces of life and love. And even so, the defeated forces of evil still have a necessary and important function, namely to force Heyst into a conflict which brings him to greater self-awareness and returns him from his self-imposed iso­ lation to the community of man. Conrad also understands that psychic equilibrium and forms of transcendence can be gained by less cataclys­ mic means; but this is better shown in the writings of Hesse, where it constitutes the central aim of Christian

12. Wright, p. 106. 136 asceticism, of yoga and of symbolical alchemy, as well as of modern psychotherapy. The possibilities of the ascetic life are best expressed by Narziss in Narziss and Goldmund, by Siddhartha, and by the old Music Master in The Glass Bead Game who is repeatedly described as a modern saint. Yet it must be kept in mind that the serenity of these men is achieved within the protective walls of cloisters and retreats and that the question of whether or not their virtues can survive the test of life is left unanswered. Even the cheerful mood which characterizes Hesse's ascetics and which is hardly ever present in the fiction of Conrad remains artificial, for it exists only where there is no disturbing involvement in objective life. Saintly recluses are therefore finally depicted as products of a one-sided and partial development by Hesse, while Conrad does not deal with them at all. On the other hand, the protagonists who become fully human in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse are those men who struggle with evil until they have come to grips with it within themselves as well as in the external world. What wisdom and strength they then gain is firmly rooted in experience and can be actively employed in life, as it is by Conrad's Stein in Lord Jim and Marlow in "Heart of Dark­ ness" or by Hesse's Demian, Leo in The Journey to the East and Knecht in The Glass Bead Game. In his essay "Ein 137 Stiickchen Theologie" ("A Brief Tract on Theology"), Hesse argues that such characters represent the last stage of what he calls Menschwerdung (the process of becoming fully human). He explains that those who reach this level of development have not only understood and integrated the discordant elements in themselves and in life, but have thereby found a new synthesis in the realm beyond good and evil. They have emerged from their struggle chastised and willing to commit their new-found understanding to an external cause so that they may help their fellow men to find greater awareness of themselves or to improve the condition of the world.13 Conrad is not as convinced as Hesse that the fully developed man is really important in the general scheme of things. However, he does agree with Hesse that the integra­ tion of evil is an essential requirement for all those who desire or find themselves compelled to attain psychological wholeness so that they may function with self-determination and wisdom in the world. How, in what context, and to what specific end Conrad and Hesse develop this common theme is perhaps best shown in some key fiction written during the latter half of their careers, namely in Conrad's "The

Secret Sharer" and The Shadow Line and in Hesse's The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game. These works

13. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, III, 388-389. 138 have in common the fact that each portrays a central char­ acter who is initially handicapped by a one-sided develop­ ment or self-doubt and is then saved by an infusion of energy and meaning through the integration of his formerly unrecognized and neglected unconscious-nature. In "The Secret Sharer" which, like so many of Con­ rad's writings, has a deceptively simple and realistic sur­ face story, a young and inexperienced sea captain derives the self-confidence and strength he needs to take firm con­ trol of his ship from his identification with Leggatt, the fugitive first mate of the Sephora. Like many of Conrad's best writings, the story operates on several levels of mean­ ing; but since it soon becomes obvious that the captain's deepening sense of kinship is based on his recognition of Leggatt as a personification of his inner potentialities, it is best to read it again as a psychological allegory depicting the confrontation of a protagonist with his double. And even though this theme is a frequent and by now a familiar one, this story differs from such previously discussed works as Lord Jim or "Heart of Darkness" in that it portrays for the first time a double as the personifica­ tion of a positive principle in life.V''

14. Douglas Hewitt, "The Secret Sharer," The Art of Joseph Conrad: A Critical.Symposium, ed. R. W. Stallman (Lansing, Mich.,1950), p. 290, calls attention to the fact that Leggatt is described as the captain's "double" or "other self" many times in the story. This.definition also identifies the Jungian archetype of the Shadow which, as Robert A. Clark, pp. 3^-36, and Hesse in Steppenwolf point out, does not always appear as a personification of evil, but can also emerge in its positive function as a guide figure and a source of strength. 139 As in Lord Jim and Victory, the double emerges here from the ocean, the symbol of the unconscious, but not as a threatening creature of its darkest regions, like Gentleman Brown and Mr. Jones, but rather as a personification of the upper strata of the psyche which are more accessible to human understanding. And once Leggatt is aboard ship, the sphere of conscious activity, the captain,' a symbol of the rational mind, can deal with him in the light of reason. While Jim, or Marlow in "Heart of Darkness," must confront the double in his native element, and consequently find themselves at a loss, the captain in "The Secret Sharer" has no such handicap and is therefore able to come to terms with his double. But whenever the unconscious protrudes into man's conscious activities it causes disturbances. On the narra­ tive level the captain finds it necessary to conceal his guest in his cabin and converses with him mainly at night. But even during the daytime Leggatt is constantly on the captain's mind and thus prevents him from giving his undi­ vided attention to his job, so that he appears absentminded, erratic, or drunk to his crew. And he himself soon feels that this dual consciousness makes him increasingly unfit for his job. One day while presiding over the dinner table he silently observes; • I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own personality, l4o sleeping in that bed, behind that door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it.15 The captain here seems to suffer from a split per­ sonality and has to cope consciously with two discordant sides of his nature. In order to regain his grasp on normality he must now either fully accept or reject Leggatt, i. e., he must integrate or. repress his double before he will again be able to take command of himself or his ship. And as in Victory or in Hesse's Demian and Steppenwolf, at this moment of crisis it is the double who acts decisively, while the captain, like Heyst, Jim, Sinclair, Haller and similar personifications of the conscious mind, lets the initiative slip out of his hands. By permitting Leggatt to swim ashore to the island of Koh-ring, i. e., by not re­ pressing his inner nature, which could have been expressed by treating Leggatt as a criminal and turning him back to the captain of the Sephora, the captain benefits both him­ self and his double. Leggatt finds sympathy, understanding and the right to live in freedom at the fringes of society, while the captain gains courage to act regardless of his doubts through the self-knowledge born of his understanding of Leggatt. The strength which the captain thus derives from his double and his navigational skill are then tested

15. Conrad, 'Twixt Land And Sea, p. 114. l4l by taking Leggatt so near to land that the ship is in actual danger of running aground. But even though the captain states "... all my future, the only future for which I was fit, would perhaps go irretrievably to pieces in any mishap to my first command," he feels that only by proving himself in this manner can he overcome his initial self-doubt and ascertain the worth of his new state.^ It must also be emphasized that in setting Leggatt free the captain by no means released a common criminal. For even though Leggatt has killed a man, the circumstances were such that he is no more evil than the Biblical Cain,, who served him as ". . . something of a legal precedent."*'"^ And even though Conrad does not imply that Cain, and there­ by Leggatt, should be regarded as a hero, such as he is depicted in Hesse's Demian, he makes it very clear that the murder of which Leggatt stands accused is something which the captain himself might have committed under similar cir­ cumstances. Moreover, Leggatt finally becomes something of an ideal which the captain feels he must measure up to. The symbol of his success in doing so is the floppy hat

16. Conrad, 'Twlxt Land And Sea, p. 135. 17. Porter Williams, "The Brand of Cain in 'The Secret Sharer,1" Modern Fiction Studies, I, Spring(1964), 27-28, traces the relationship between Leggatt and Cain and concludes that common men simply cannot understand such independent characters, and Leggatt is therefore protected by the captain as the Biblical Cain ostensibly was by the Lord. 142 which the captain impulsively puts on the departing

Leggatt1s headj who leaves it floating in the sea as he swims. The hat then serves as a marker that enables the captain to maneuver his ship free of the threatening shoals of Koh-ring. Since a hat is one of the symbols of the changing personality,the entire episode can be considered as a symbolic depiction of a fact repeatedly pointed out by Concad and Hesse before, namely that the process of gaining deep self-knowledge can easily lead a person to the brink of disaster. But here, by accepting and "identifying with his unconscious self, the captain of

"The Secret Sharer" gains new strength and understanding by which he overcomes the sense of inadequacy that plagued him at first. At the end of the story he is able to function effectively in the objective world with a proven ability to sail his ship.

18. C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. P. C. Hull (New York, 1952), pp. 47-4o. Moreover, Guerard, pp. 25-26, who points out that in Jungian psychol­ ogy a hat "... represents the personality, which can be transferred symbolically to another," also mentions that since Leggatt does not take the captain's hat to shore this story does not end with the integration of the two sides of the self but rather with Conrad's "desperate hope" that each might live on and without losing his identity. < 143 The Shadow Line, Conrad's last important novel, is in many ways a delayed sequel to "The Secret Sharer.""^ The two works are thematically similar in that their cen­ tral passages depict the struggle of a young, newly appointed captain of a sailing ship to conquer his sense of personal insufficiency, but they differ in their narrative method. While throughout "The Secret Sharer" Conrad de­ pends almost exclusively on symbolism to illuminate the psychological conflict of the protagonist, in The Shadow Line symbols are less important and he achieves the same end primarily by using more direct, conventional descrip­ tion of various characters' emotional states and of natural scenes. And whereas "The Secret Sharer" ends with the captain's sense of achievement, the education of the pro­ tagonist in The Shadow Line continues until he comes to the realization that no man can be truly self-sufficient and that actual maturity is not reached until he also ad- mits his affinity with and his dependency on other men. 20

19. This seems likely not only because The 'Shadow- Ling, which was published seven years after "The Secret Sharer," shows thematic continuity, but also.because the real difficulties of this voyage begin at the location where those in."The Secret Sharer" end, namely near the island of Koh-ring. Since it is here that the passage of the Melita in The Shadow Line is dramatically delayed, it seems as if Conrad later had second thoughts about the adequacy of his captain in "The Secret Sharer" and in retrospect delayed his passage from here until he had mas­ tered further lessons of life in The Shadow Line. 20. Carl Benson, "Conrad's Two Stories of Initia­ tion, PMLA, LXIX (March 1954), 46-47. 144 By thus advancing this theme, Conrad stresses in The Shadow Line what he had not realized when he wrote "The Secret Sharer," namely that it is finally not enough for the inte­ grated personality to be in command of itself and its immediate affairs. It is Conrad's mature judgment that the justifiable pride in individual understanding, capability and achievement must be tempered with the more mature recognition of the need for a sense of solidarity with all men who struggle against the forces of darkness in all spheres of human endeavor and awareness. Only those who reach the overriding realization of the interdependence of all men have finally crossed the invisible line to which the title of this novel refers. 21 The modifications of the captain's self-concept and his consequent revaluation of his role in life, which com­ prise the main theme in The Shadow line, are again ex­ pressed with the aid of symbols which Conrad has used before. From the very beginning it is obvious that the sick crew of the Melita, the calm sea, the worthless medicine, the unreliable mates, and finally the purging storm are all counters which depict the protagonist's psychic state. In fact, it seems as if many typical Con- radian symbols and themes are here brought together and subjected to one final scrutiny.

21. Ian Watt, "Story and Idea in Conrad's The Shadow Line," Critical Quarterly, II, Summer (i960)W4. 145

The first lesson that the youthful and overly enthusiastic captain in The Shadow Line has to learn is that the assumption of authority is not a panacea which automatically solves everything, but that instead it ulti­ mately burdens him with ". . .a tumult of suffering, vitality, doubt, confusion, self-reproach, and an indef­ inite reluctance to meet the horrid logic of £his3 situa­ tion," so that he feels he could bear no more without going mad.22 These severe demands on a captain's wisdom and strength had only been implied in previous Conradian fiction, while the thoughtless zeal, misuse of authority and lack of social responsibility came in for condemnation. In his rash desire to prove himself worthy of his first command, the young captain ignored all warnings not to take a ship with a sick crew out to sea, for he was confident that the fresh breeze and the quinine aboard could effect a cure. In this imprudent display of blind faith in circumstances and the benevolence of the sea, he resembles young Marlow in "Youth," and he too must learn the role fate plays in teaching men their limitations. Soon after the ship leaves harbor the breeze ceases to blow; the ship is paralyzed and the fever of the crew worsens. The consequent discovery that the quinine aboard has been exchanged for some worthless powder also contributes to the

22. Conrad, The Shadow Line, p. 93. 146 captain's loss of self-confidence. For the moment he is deprived of his purpose in objective life, to steer his ship, and is thrown back upon his inner resources. The classic theme of isolating a hero and preparing him for the fall by depriving him of his props begins here, for the young captain at first compares himself with ". . .a king in his country, in a class all by myself . . . brought there to rule by an agency as remote from the people and as inscrutable almost to them as the Grace of God."2^ And he is further shocked into the recognition of the hollowness of this conception of power when he learns that his predecessor has wantonly misused his authority and betrayed the trust of the crew. The fact that as a conse­ quence his crew does not automatically consider him as something like a king and perhaps not even as trustworthy makes him feel his isolation for the first time. He is soon oppressed by his "lonely responsibilities" and speaks of the "... endless vigilance of [his} lonely task."2^ However, as so often in the previously discussed fiction of Conrad and Hesse, it is precisely this sense of isolation which forces a given protagonist to confront him­ self and to search for solutions to the problems within his own psyche. This is invariably a period of crisis for him.

23. Conrad, The Shadow Line, p. 62. 24. Ibid., pp. 75-76. 147 In The Shadow Line the captain's inward hesitancy at that time is symbolically represented by the stagnant waters as well as by the absence of wind and medicine. From here the path generally leads to total stagnation and death, as it does for characters like Almayer, Willems or Verloc in the fiction of Conrad and for Hans Giebenrath and Mr. Klein in the writings of Hesse; or it leads to the emergence of new insight and strength, as it does for Conrad's Marlow and the captain in "The Secret Sharer" or for Hesse's Demian and Harry Haller. For the captain in The Shadow Line it leads, as mentioned, to a new level of self-recognition and ultimately to the integration of all his capabilities. However, while in preceding works by Conrad the protagonist is faced with the classical dissociation of his personality into two halves representing the ego and the double, in The Shadow Line the protagonist's psyche is split into three major components represented by the narrator himself, by the extroverted, rational and reliable cook, Mr. Ransome, and by the superstitious and irrational chief mate, Mr. Burns. This more complex division of the human psyche seems to indicate Conrad's growing awareness that the mani­ fold potentialities in man can no longer be represented by two simple figures embodying a relatively clear-cut ethical duality in man and the world. Instead Conrad here suggests what Hesse developed fully in Steppenwolf, namely that the 148 human psyche is more fragmented than had been previously suspected. This has, of course, meanwhile become common knowledge and precludes dogmatic analyses and neat little interpretations of .many literary works.^ However, critics do agree that insofar as The Shadow Line is seen as a psychological allegory, the super­ stitious and overly emotional mate Burns acts as an embodi­ ment of the captain's inherent fears and insecurities, while the physically weak but courageous cook, Ransome, represents the captain's latent strength. Ransome, of course, here plays the role of Leggatt in "The Secret Sharer," of Lena in Victory, of Hesse's Demian and of Hermine in Steppenwolf. But the analogy between him and Leggatt is especially close since on the narrative level both are initially taken aboard only because of their respective captains' sense of kinship with them and since they become indispensable agents who help their respective commanders find a degree of inner security without which they could not function effectively, if at all. The period of soul-searching ends and the moment of crisis comes for the captain in The Shadow Line when in the depth of despair he has faced his human frailty and just as he confesses in his notebook:

25. Guerard, p. 32. 149 . . . and what appals me most of all is that I shrink from going on deck to face . . . the men who are there on deck—some of them, ready to put out the last remnant of their strength at a word from me. And I am shrinking from it. From the mere vision. My first command. Now I understand that strange sense of insecurity in my past. I always suspected that I might be no good. And here is proof positive, I am shirking it, I am no good.2o It is then that Ransome appears to announce the approaching storm and to give the dispirited captain courage to face it. The ensuing night-journey through the storm is again depicted as a descent into archetypal realms which has a "maturing and tempering" effect on the inexperienced protagonist's character.27 From this ordeal he emerges as a whole man, more conscious than ever before of the infi­ nite potentialities and complex demands of life. Such purging experiences are not new in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse, but the symbolic journey through the shadow world is here preceded by the captain's confession and his feeling of remorse, which indicates the awakening of his humanity and his sense of identification with his suffering yet brave crew. At the end of the journey the captain has recovered psychologically and spiritually. He has regained his self-confidence, but he has also acknowledged the common human element within himself as well as his role in

26. Conrad, The Shadow Line, p. 107.

27. Ibid., p. 129. 150 human society, which is ". . . forever characterized by pQ evils and weaknesses as well as by ideals."^0 More than any other protagonist in the fiction of Conrad and Hesse, he now realizes his limitations and yet affirms his role in the objective world. He has won the victory Heyst was unable to attain because he has learned that deliverance from evil depends on his willingness to act. On the narrative level the captain can now permit his alter egos, Burns and Ransome, to leave the ship, as the captain in "The Secret Sharer" was able to let Leggatt go; he knows himself and no longer needs either. His has been the steady passage from the egocentricity depicted in "Youth" to the depth of self-recognition probed in "Heart of Darkness," to the emergence of the mediating figure of Leggatt in "The Secret Sharer," and finally to the attain­ ment of the compassionate maturity represented by Captain Giles in The Shadow Line. And now he has established the proper relationship with his fellow men; he has found ". . . his rightful place in a collectivity--a community that is no mere mass, no senseless conglomerate of indi- viduals, but a vital organism that leads to new life.".,29

28. Benson, 89. 29. According to the definition of the Jungian Way of Individuation in Jacobi, p. 100, the captain in The Shadow Line has at this point gone as far in the direction of self-realization as is humanly possible and can be con­ sidered an integrated or individuated personality. 151 Since Conrad himself considered The Shadow Line his authen­ tic. spiritual autobiography, it seems to represent the author's final formulation of what he thought man can attain in life; and this final position is perhaps best described as open-eyed resignation.^0 Due to his previously mentioned intimate familiar­ ity with the theories of Freud and Jung, Hesse had come to an almost identical understanding of the possibilities for self-development relatively early in his artistic career. But like Conrad he must have found that the integration of the contradictory components of the human psyche is neither an adequate nor necessarily a permanent achievement in itself, for after writing the popular but inconclusive novel Narziss and Goldmund, Hesse tentatively continues his quest for an adequate self-concept and role in life in The Journey to the East.3^ That Hesse returned to writing his psychological autobiographies at all may illustrate the truth in what Conrad had expressed often before, namely that the self--

30. Gerard Jean-Aubry, Joseph Conrad; Life and Letters (Garden City, N. Y., 1927^ ltS2-lt>3; and Conrad, "Author1s Note," The Shadow Line, pp. vii-x. 31. Bernhard Zeller, Hermann Hesse in Selbstzeug- nissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1969), pp. 105, 125, points out that Hesse considered Narziss and Goldmund not one of his typical Seelenbiographlen while The Journey to the East represents the hesitant continuation of his quest which then found its final expression in The Glass Bead Game. 152 even the integrated self—must be used in relation to some­ thing outside itself if it is to remain intact. But the two authors differ markedly in their fictional formulations of just what the individuated man should do or aspire to. Conrad depicts the integrated personality, surprisingly enough, along Jungian lines, as the individual who copes with awareness and isolation by dedicating himself to a •ap concrete task. Hesse, on the other hand, now portrays protagonists with identical psychological development as members of esoteric leagues involved in vaguely defined Utopian schemes. One result of this divergence is that in contrast to Conrad's continuing preoccupation with the relationship between the ego and the dark, or "evil," com­ ponents of the psyche, Hesse displays a new, deep interest in the possibilities of fusing the ego with light or "good" aspects of the psyche and of achieving a new identity—or a transcendental self. This possibility had already been considered in Demian, but while Hesse there had only searched for ways to strengthen the conscious personality, in The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game he aims at using a new-found higher self in a collective task that

32. This is again a course of action recommended by modern psychology. Jung, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, p. 72, declares that the maintenance of a given person's mental health generally depends on his ability to remain "... firmly rooted in his ego-function," i. e., in his social activities and duties. 153 will benefit all mankind. Hesse thus reflects a belief which Conrad apparently does not share, namely that "the fulfilled individual who has completed the process of individuation need no longer insist vociferously upon his precious personality."33 All the same, the subordination of the expanded ego to new ideals representing the values of his higher self again brings about a period of readjustment and uncertainty not unlike that preceding the integration of the double depicted in Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" and Hesse's Steppenwolf. In fact it is not until the new ideals to which such an aspirant to higher service must dedicate him­ self have become an integral part of his conscious person­ ality that he can feel "safe" again. This difficult period of transition is well illus­ trated by H. H., the protagonist of Hesse's The Journey to the East, who has, at the beginning of the novel, lost what is to him a vital contact with his order of Morgenland- fahrer^ and thus finds himself adrift in a world without

33. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, p. 25-!-. 34. Morgenlandfahrer (Travelers to the East) are those who strive for inner harmony by aesthetically tran­ scending the chaotic world so that they may then better serve their fellow men by bringing to them the values of a loftier sphere, The focus of Hesse's endeavor here shifts from depicting man's possibilities for achieving psycho­ logical maturity to further exploring his idealistic, aesthetic and mystical aspirations, which is in sharp con­ trast to Conrad's dedication to objective endeavor. values. H. H. tries to remedy this situation, i. e., to recover his lost ideals, by writing the history of his order, but soon finds that his efforts are in vain because he is unable to recapitulate the inner meaning of the exact

purpose of his and his fellow-pilgrims1 previous endeavors, never going beyond the depiction of externals.35 The crucial event to which H. H. returns again and again in his writing is the loss of Leo, the "servant" whose disappear­ ance in the gorge of morbio inferiore threatens the group with disintegration and, as H. H. assumes, with the possi­ bility of being dropped from the annals of mankind. However, it soon becomes apparent that the more immediate reason for H. H.'s alarm is his recognition that Leo is a personification of his higher faculties, his inspiration and guiding spirit, without which his life is void of meaning and he is as ineffectual as Conrad's cap­ tains before they succeed in integrating the previously submerged components of their personalities.

35. It is frequently pointed out that this theme The Journey to the East is one of Hesse's more cogent comments on the relation of the artist to his work. According to Ziolkowski, The Novels of tlermann Hesse, p. 265, it is also one of the central ironies of the novel; for while the artist finds himself continuously compelled from within to create and thereby to impose order and form upon his imaginations, he may, like H. H., temporarily have lost the meaning of his work, in which case his con­ cern for a rigid form becomes all-important. 155 When years later the protagonist finds the lost servant Leo again and .attempts to re-establish their former relationship, he gradually comes to the realization that not Leo but he himself had lost contact" with"the League, the spiritual center of his life. The second part of the novel then deals with the attempt of H. H. to regain his faith in a higher way of life. He does so through the medium of Leo, who at first professes not to recognize him at all but then takes him to the lodge of the League where, in a scene reminiscent of Haller's trial in Steppenwolf, he is judged, declared a deserter and punished by being ridi­ culed. Leo, the former servant, here emerges as the high­ est judge and laughs at the conceit of H. H. in attempting to act as chronicler of the League, but then, to H. H.'s bewilderment, lifts all restrictions and opens up the infinite archives to him. The fact that during the trial H. H.'s artistic vanity and his lack of reverence for things of the spirit are deemed his only noteworthy offenses might indicate that Hesse considers all attempts to completely understand the workings of the human mind and the mysteries of life as useless. This indicates a sense of resignation and a recognition of human limitations which is also clearly per­ ceptible in especially the later works of Conrad. But

Hesse insists that even though man may not be able to 156 achieve ultimate knowledge or virtue, he can go far toward transcending his present lot and, at any rate, should strive for that end as a therapeutic necessity. The Journey to the East is thus an expression of Hesse's faith that when man's desire is great enough there is progress, for the attempt to master life with the aid of virtue, reason and a sense of justice rarely goes unrewarded.^6 Thus, even though the disappointed narrator in The Journey to the East soon finds that the manuscripts of the League, i. e., the records of all human endeavor stored here, are far too numerous.and unintelligible for him to reduce to a few manageable pages, he still arrives a£ a resolution of at least his own problem. In the cubicle reserved for his personal file H. H. finds a symbolic representation of himself and his predica­ ment in the form of a statue consisting of two figures back-to-back with a Janus head. In this double figure H. H. recognizes himself and Leo, i. e., his conscious person­ ality and his higher self, in the process of being fused into one entity. He observes how something . . . schmolz oder rann . . . aus meinem Ebenbild in das Bild Leos hinuber, und ich erkannte, dass mein Bild im Begriffe war, sich mehr und mehr an Leo hinzugeben und zu verstromen, ihn zu nahren und zu starken. Mit der Zeit, so schien es, wiirde

36. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 68. 157 alle Substanz aus dem einen Bilde in das andre hin- uberrinnen und nur ein einziges iibrigbleiben: Leo. Er musste wachsen, ich musste abnehmen.37 (. . . melted or poured across from my image to that of Leo and I perceived that my image was in the process of adding to and flowing into Leo's, nourishing and strengthening it. It seemed that, in time, all the substance from one image would flow into the other and only one would re­ main: Leo. He had to grow; I had to dis­ appear.) The novel then ends with the narrator's experience of an "infinite weariness" and his search for a place where he can sleep, i. e., with the absorption of his ego into a greater unity perhaps best understood as a utopian common­ wealth of Immortals like those v/ho admonished Haller in his dreams in Steppenwolf. But while the supernaturals there were only fleetingly encountered personifications of common sense and aesthetic detachment, in The Journey to the East they become more concrete formulations of Hesse's belief in man's ability not only to live abstractly in a kingdom of the spirit, but also to bring this spiritual utopia into existence in objective reality.3^ jj. H. aids this process when he becomes identified with the values of this sphere and (by implication) instrumental in giving them concrete existence in such an abstract and refined commonwealth as

37. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 75-76. 38. Ziolkowski, "Hermann Hesse's Chiliastic Vision," Monatshefte, LIII (April-May 1961), 203. 158 is depicted in The Glass Bead Game. To Hesse such a realm represents an antidote to the existing sordid political and social structures, of which, as has been indicated in the previous chapters of this dissertation, he was as critical as Conrad. Hesse's belief in the possibility of escaping this dismal state by enlightening men in sufficient numbers was, however, not shared by Conrad, who consequently re­ frained from depicting idealistic realms. Yet in spite of Hesse's expressed faith in the possibility of human spiritual evolution, it must not be supposed that he was naive in his assumption about what the future may hold in store for mankind. He merely acknowl­ edges that the urge toward a higher awareness is operative in man, which warrants the hope that sanity may prevail in time. But Hesse is aware that this hope represents, in fact, a leap of faith and may be little more than idle wish- fulfillment. And that is perhaps why he describes H. H.'s naive faith throughout The Journey to the East in an ironic tone sometimes reminiscent of that evident in Conrad as he depicts the enthusiastic bungling of young Marlow in "Youth." Another indication that in spite of expressed hopes Hesse may have had doubts about man's future is his tend­ ency to consider life on earth as a game. Leo, for in­ stance, advises H. H. during his trial that life is largely 159 what one makes of It and that it is best not to take

passing phenomena too seriously.39 The "game" of which Leo (or Hesse) here speaks is the artist's endeavor to create an aesthetic realm to which he can escape. This enables the artist to evade the foolish claim of personalism, which he considers the source of all despair, and to lose himself in the realm of the imagination where he can feel in tune with all of life, and where he can subjugate his ego in willing service to his order. This is a form of escapism as well as of commitment, and therein lies Leo's key to bliss as well as the final irony of the book. For as H. H. becomes more and more absorbed by the ideal of service to the group and loses his sense of being a separate entity, he also assumes a higher sense of commitment and of living 40 a meaningful life. The undifferentiated human ego whxch Hesse depicted in his early fiction has become, at the end of The Journey to the East, a new psychological entity which has not only integrated the components that link it to the realm of "darkness and evil," but has established an even stronger link with its higher potentialities. On the narrative level it has here found a new identity in the person of Leo, who is as independent and self-confident as Conrad's captains at the end of "The Secret Sharer" and The

39. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 49. 40. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, pp. 280-281. 160 Shadow Line, but who adds an additional dimension in that he can not only command without feeling arrogant but also serve without feeling inferior. Leo thus is a composite symbol expressing all human potential, while his sojourn gives temporary expression to the credo of Hesse's life.^ However, it seems that after further consideration Hesse recognized the concept represented by Leo, "... der in der Offentlichkeit dienende, heimlich herrschende und 2io milde richtende Gott in des Dichters Seele . . .' (the author's idealistic conception of a God who serves in the world and judges mildly), as an excessively esoteric formu­ lation after all, which had to be modified if it were to have relevance on the plane of actual physical existence. Hesse apparently attempted to do just that when he wrote The Glass Bead Game, his longest novel and last testament.43 The Glass Bead Game is comparable in structural intricacy and sheer mass of analytical material only to Nostromo among Conrad's and to none of Hesse's other woi'ks.

41. R. H. Farquharson, "The Identity and Signifi­ cance of Leo in Hesse's Morgenlandfahrt," Monatshefte, LV (March 1963), 122. This can also be inferred from the fact that the initials of the protagonist, H. H., coincide with those of the author of the novel. 42. Gnefkow, p. 101. 43. The German title of this novel is Das Glasper- lenspiel. It has been translated as The Glass Bead Game in the United States and as Magister Ludi in England. Thu title of the American translation is used here since it seems to better reflect the author's intent. l6l Thematically, however, it is a continuation of The Journey to the East, since it "grounds" the ideal formulated in that novelette by stressing the need for the practical applicability of idealistic concepts and for the moral com­ mitment of each existentially engaged intellectual to his fellow men.^ This brings Hesse's last novel again closer to the- emphasis in the writings of Conrad, who never ceases to uphold concrete personal responsibility and commitment as a virtue. In its outer form The Glass Bead Game is often con­ sidered a Utopian novel, a historical and biographical study, a Bildungsroraan or a Bundesroman, for it contains elements of all these literary genres. The work is osten­ sibly written in the year 2400 by an anonymous chronicler and depicts as its central concern the life of Joseph Knecht, the greatest Magister Ludi (i. e., Master of the Glass Bead Game) of Castalia, an educational province in the Swiss Alps existing largely isolated and aloof from the world around it. Castalia, as is explained in the lengthy introduction to the novel, is dedicated to the cultivation

44. This is perhaps best indicated by the fact that Hesse dedicated The Glass Bead Game to the Morgenland- fahrer, those who aspire to universal harmony and intellec­ tual integrity through the ideal of study and service. Ernst Rose, p. 139j moreover, points out that the name of the protagonist of the novel, Joseph Knecnt (which means "servant" in German), has also an etymological connection with "knight" -which connotes "noble faithfulness" and in The Glass Bead Game comes to mean "servant of God." 162 of pure thought (Geist) as an end in itself. The central activity through which this is to be achieved is the Glass Bead Game, an institution as well as an exercise in symbolic logic in which complex meanings are attributed to figures and moves v/hich then aim at finding the relationship and fundamental unity between all aspects of knowledge and religious endeavor. The perfection of this "game" is indeed the chief function of the Castalian Order.^ In the introduction to The Glass Bead Game, which is in part also a brilliant and incisive critique of our present "feuilletonistic" age, Hesse explains that Castalia came into existence to counteract the spiritual vacuity of our era in which men are virtually defenseless in the face of death, anxiety, nihilistic despair and pain, no longer consolable by the churches and uncounseled by the mxnd.46 And it is from the point of view of the spiritually "secure" Castalian narrator that Hesse emerges as Kulturphilosoph and uncompromising critic of his age to censure the modern

45. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, pp. 289-291. It might be worth noting that since the subject here is a purely intellectual construct, the Glass Bead Game and Knecht himself are more difficult to visualize than any figures or activities in other novels of Hesse. Even in the description of Knecht himself Hesse employs terminology which is nearly devoid of pictorial imagery and thus reflects the increasing abstractness of his literary portraits, an abstraction which he, ironically, discards at the end of the novel.

46. Hesse, Gesammelte Schriften, VI, 88. 163 world and to attempt once again to bring the abstract aspirations of man and the concrete realities of his exist­ ence into harmony. Hesse feels that without this union civilization is rapidly approaching a stage at which the present bourgeois value-system based on individualism, materialism and essentially irresponsible notions of "progress" will cease to bring comfort and consolation, and instead will lead to cultural bankruptcy characterized by disillusionment and pessimism. The evils of our present age, then, fostered the growth of the pedagogical utopia of Castalia as a counter­ acting influence in an effort to restore a workable balance between intellectual activity and social reality, i. e., between Geist and Seele (or Natur). However, gradually Castalia has fallen victim to the same vices which had separated the life of the mind from the realities of exist­ ence on other levels during the past age, namely it has become so self-satisfied, so stale and so detached from the actual concerns of the world that vital contact and fruit­ ful interchange between the two realms have been lost. By the time Joseph Knecht becomes Magister Ludi, the Castalian Order and Province have virtually lost their soul and are in danger of being considered irrelevant by the outside world, while the Glass Bead Game has degenerated into a mere form of entertainment. 164 It is Hesse's treatment of this crippling dichotomy depicted in The Glass Bead Game which constitutes the cen­ tral irony of the work and which makes it directly compar­ able with several of Conrad's and Hesse's own preceding works. Knecht, from the first a model student at various training centers of Castalia, eventually feels himself as much an outsider as Conrad's Decoud in Nostromo or Heyst in Victory, because he increasingly realizes that his cherished rationality and detachment lead, above all, to a painful isolation from his more mundane fellow men. Knecht's awakening (as Hesse calls it) to the inadequacy of the intellectual and aesthetic Castalian ideal comes especially after his spirited arguments with his friend Plinio Desig- nori, the voice of society, and his conversations with Father Jacobus, the brilliant Benedictine historian and representative of the socially involved and committed religious orders. And since Knecht is profoundly affected by Father Jacobus' just accusations that Castalia exists without a real foundation in life, he endeavors to restore some of the original spirit and relevancy to the Glass Bead Game as soon as he becomes Magister Ludi.^ At this time in his career Knecht can be compared to the captains in Conrad's "The Secret Sharer" and The

47. Hesse, Gesaminelte Schrlften, VI, 251. 165 Shadow Line, in their attempts to know and assert them­ selves and to take firm command of their ships. But while the endeavors of Conrad's captains are crowned by success, those of Magister Ludi Knecht lead only to .further estrange­ ment from those firmly identified -with the Castalian estab­ lishment and bring him to the resolution to give up his exalted position, to leave his ship, so to speak, and to strike out on his own as Leggatt in "The Secret Sharer" had done. He may then live fully according to the demands of his nature and satisfy his "... hunger for a reality beyond mere symbols and abstractions, for deeds, suffering, ilP and sacrifice . . ."in the external world. Within the framework of Hesse's own fiction Knecht, the final formulation of the complete man, is the epitome of the composite hero. For while in Pernlan and in The Journey to the East a synthesis of Gelst (the conscious values, the ideal, "good") is achieved which excludes more than it transcends the elements of Natur (the unconscious, the world, "evil"), and while in Steppenwolf the elements of Natur are joined to create a man as adjusted to reality as Conrad's captains, the concept of the role of the total personality is even further expanded in The Glass Bead Game,

48. Joseph Mileclc, "Hermann Hesse's Glasperlen- spiel," University of California Publications in Modern Philology, XXXVI (1952/7 253. 166 where an unbalanced psychological development is totally rejected. Here man is clearly recognized as neither pre­ dominantly idealistic nor depraved but as both in equal measure. He has in his psychological makeup (again) the potentiality for all shades of good and evil which he must recognize and experience at least within himself and in relation to which he must existentially assert himself. However, in Castalia psychological potentiality need not be translated into overt action but can be experienced in meditation and, in Knecht's case., is developed in detail in the three imaginary autobiographies which he had been re­ quired to write as a student. The biographies which are appended to The Glass Bead Game portray the self-sacrificial life of a rainmaker in a primitive society, the temptation and the final affir­ mation of Christian ideals of a hermit and confessor in Gaza during the fourth century, and the exploration and rejection of the world by Dasa, an Indian prince. A fourth, unfinished autobiography deals with the life of a Swabian theologian who gave up his studies because he found the life of a musician more rewarding. Despite their infusion of worldly elements, all of these tracts finally advocate the one-sided intellectual and spiritual life which Hesse rejects in the latter half of The Glass Bead Game; but they incorporate his ideals of 167 intellectual responsibility and service which he had tentatively explored in The Journey to the East and to which he steadfastly adheres.^ The autobiographies also formulate again Hesse's belief in the need for the timeless tradition of selfless service as a force to counteract the barbarism and chaos of our present age.^O But some critics consider the entire structural framework of the biographies and the novel as a whole unsatisfactory, for it adds noth­ ing new and leads (as in Demian and in The Journey to the East) merely to an idealistic impasse without suggesting a clear, practical solution. 51 At any rate, in The Glass Bead Game Hesse explores the possibility of creating a utopia on earth and finds

U9. Sidney M. Johnson, "The Autobiographies in Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," Geraan Quarterly, XXIX (May 1956), 167, lb9. 50. Rose, p. 13^, also calls attention to the probability that Hesse meant the autobiographies to repre­ sent previous incarnations of Knecht during which he began his present quest for perfection and the experiences which he briefly recapitulated in his present life before he transcended them. Joseph Mileck, "Hermann Hesse's Glasper­ lenspiel," 260, seems to confirm this belief to some extent by showing the stages in Knecht's present career which each autobiography represents: Knecht thus resembles the rain­ maker as long as his faith in Castalia remains absolute; he leaves his spiritual abode like the Confessor when his doubts become too great but conditionally adheres to his former ideal to the last; and he resembles Dasa, the Indian prince, in that he prefers service to the world of the ideal over that to the "real" world throughout his life. 51. Mileck,"Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," 257- 258. 168 that such an attempt Is doomed from the beginning because human nature, which may well aspire to a psychological and social equilibrium, is not capable of maintaining it, since this is contrary to the drive toward experience and progress which lies at the very root of life. Conrad came to similar conclusions in Nostromo and Under Western Eyes. And both authors seem to confirm the Schopenhauerian thesis that the interplay between the positive and negative prin­ ciples of life leads only to momentary synthesis and sta­ bility on a higher plane before new division sets in to repeat the process ad_ infinitum. Yet.even though man may become aware of himself as part of this process and lose faith in the possibility of any permanent reconciliation of life-forces operating within himself or in the world, he must nevertheless strive for growth and stability. To evade the process by escaping into a romantic phantas­ magoria like Peter Camenzind and Lord Jim or to attempt to cope with it only in a private intellectual universe like most Castalians or Heyst is futile. In The Glass Bead Game the main representatives of the two poles of social and psychological activity are Knecht and Plinio Designori. Each strives for equilibrium by desiring to experience and incorporate the values of the opposite world. They do not desire to remain what they are and to coexist or to achieve a fusion of their respective 169 qualities in a new entity, as has been the case in most previously discussed key works by Conrad and Hesse. In­ stead they exchange worlds. While Knecht leaves Castalia to experience and serve the outside world, his double, Plinio Designori, who has experienced the jungle of politi­ cal activity and the disappointments of practical life, yearns for and re-enters the world that Knecht leaves. To Designori the Castalian ideal of dispassionate rationality, of beauty, or detached gaiety achieved by the Old Music Master (or by the Immortals in Steppenwolf and Stein in Lord Jim) seems immensely attractive. Knecht, however, who now thinks that the sophisticated and threatened values of Castalia can only be preserved and made relevant again by imbuing them with the spirit of youth, dedicates himself to the education of his later successor, Tito, the intelligent but sensual and unruly son of Plinio Designori. But in his desire to make intimate contact with Tito, Knecht eventu­ ally loses control of the situation, follows his charge to a cabin in the high Alps and drowns in the attempt to swim with him across an icy lake. It seems that Hesse here underlines the futility of all individual human endeavor, but Knecht1s death actually furthers his real purpose by giving Tito the necessary impetus to follow in the foot­ steps of his respected friend. Knecht thus provides an aspirant for Castalia who embraces all existence and later 170 infuses needed new life into the Castalian Order to balance its excessive identification with aesthetic values and thus makes "... his individual contribution to the spiritual cp welfare of all humanity in an age of chaos and barbarity."3 The Glass Bead Game, Hesse's last symbol of the process of mental and aesthetic activity that leads to the transcendence of perhaps unpleasant objective reality, is discarded as unsatisfactory at the end of The Glass Bead Game.Through the career of Knecht, Hesse shows his con­ viction that a permanent identification with this "third kingdom" of light, rationality, goodness and idealized service, which he depicted as desirable in The Journey to the East, is generally not possible since the consequently repressed opposite realm of darkness, irrationality and "evil" enforces change and increasing awareness. After his physical and later his mental emergence from the realm of Natur, after his temporary mastery of the spiritual sphere in the role of Magister Ludi, Knecht completes his cycle by yielding to the natural imperative to follow the voice of youth back to the source of life ". .'. convinced that life, in its turn, by virtue of his sacrifice will call Tito one

52. Kenneth Negus, "On the Death of Joseph Knecht in Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," Monatshefte, LIII (April-May 1961), l3b~i . 53. Gerhard Kirchhoff, "Das Glasperlenspiel als 'Reine Gegenwart'" in Gnefkow, pp. 125-127. 171 step closer to its center and open up before him the aware­ ness of life as a whole and the feeling of the relation and connection of all things.11 Tito, then, seems to emerge as the final formula­ tion of the Hessean ideal character, as his man of the future who combines with his lasting rootedness in nature the best traits of his father, Plinio Designori, the enlightened man of the world, and of his spiritual mentor, Joseph Knecht, the representative of the highest cultural and intellectual values of mankind. He is also the product of the mystical union of Gelst and Natur that his father and Knecht had aspired to but failed to attain.^5 in many ways he represents the harmonious fusion of all dis­ cordant psychological and social factors and values in man which have been the subject of nearly all Conradian and Hessean fiction discussed in this dissertation. The difference between Conrad's and Hesse's final view on man's possibilities in life, then, becomes obvious when one considers the role played by the protagonists in their last major works. For even though Hesse ultimately rejects the existentially disengaged preoccupations of the members of the esoteric League in The Journey to the East

54. Hilde D. Cohn, "The Symbolic End of Hesse's Glasperlenspiel." Modern Language Quarterly, II (September 1950), 356. . 55. Mileck, "Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," 258. 172 and the cloistered asceticism represented by Castalia as it exists in The Glass Bead Game, he never ceases to advo­ cate the idea that the sensitive man should deliberately strive for an awareness and existence above bourgeois mediocrity. Moreover, Hesse implies to the last not only that man can and should endeavor to live in tune with the ideals mankind has always upheld but that an integrated individual can find a purpose in life by consciously aiding the evolution of collective man from his previous and now inherent animalism toward achieving true humanity. Conrad, on the other hand, remains essentially pessimistic. He has little hope that mankind can improve itself, or that the individual can do more than wrest a fleeting and personal victory from life. In his last two novels. The Rescue and The Rover, as in all preceding fiction, Conrad gives no hint that he believes in the existence of a supra-personal world with which man can identify to sustain what idealism he may have. On the contrary, the major characters of his late fiction remain entrapped to the last in the quagmire of conflicting inner urges and outward loyalties and goals. In The Rescue Captain Lingard, who had also played a role in Almayer's Folly and An Outcast of the Islands, finds himself isolated and incapable of resolving a mortal con­ flict between Europeans and Malays around him. This may 173 well be a symbolic expression of the fact that Conrad, in spite of all his previous fictional portraits of characters who achieved psychological wholeness, was unable to achieve a final resolution of his own inner conflicts. Jean Peyrol, the renegade and protagonist of The Rover, Conrad's last novel, fares even worse when he finds nothing more to do with his life than to forfeit it in a last noble gesture for two young lovers, Lieutenant Real and Arlette. There is some relationship between Knecht's self- sacrifice in The C-lass Bead Game and that of Peyrol in The Rover. Both perish for younger people who represent the future. Both Knecht and Peyrol achieve a symbolic tempo­ rary lease on life :Ln that their memory, at least, is revered by their respective charges. But while Tito in Hesse's The Glass Bead Game is a young Galahad who is pro­ jected 500 years into the future as the focal point of a new Hegelian synthesis, the young couple rescued in Conrad's last novel represent little more than a continuation of life as it has been and, Conrad seems to suggest, as it will be, at least in the foreseeable future. CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Evil, as it Is portrayed in the writings of Joseph Conrad and Hermann Hesse, is a dynamic principle of the universe which exists independently and also manifests itself as one of the polar opposites within human nature. Neither Conrad nor Hesse conceives of evil as a moral absolute per se, but rather as a relative concept which designates loosely all that is unpleasant, fearsome or atavistic to man. But both authors see evil also as a force that goads man toward greater awareness of himself and the universe he inhabits. However, not all characters in the fiction of either Conrad or Hesse can profit from the experience of evil in its various manifestations.- The immature or pre­ viously unexposed, like Conrad's count in "II Conde" or Hesse's Hans Giebenrath in Under the Wheel, are sometimes overcome by it, while others, like young Marlow in Conrad's "Youth" or Hesse's Peter Camenzind or the protagonist of "Kinderseele," either do not recognize evil as such or are permitted to shirk facing up to it. The simple or psychologically underdeveloped char­ acters in the fiction of Conrad, such as Captain MacWhirr

174 175 of "Typhoon," the French lieutenant in Lord Jim and old Singleton in The Nigger of the Narcissus, or virtually each member of the bourgeoisie in the fiction of Hesse, try to fortify themselves against the influence of evil in the form of external danger by reacting to it automatically according to time-honored codes. Natural calamities, especially in the sea stories of Conrad, usually bring out the best in men, particularly where the survival of a ship's crew during a storm depends on their courage, dis­ cipline, restraint, fidelity and sense of duty. Hesse respects such para-military virtues in characters facing acute danger as much as Conrad but, as is expressed clearly in Demian, Steppenwolf and various of his political writ­ ings, he considers such ethics inadequate when they merely protect man from having to recognize and consciously cope with the straining force behind the bulkhead. Automatic reaction to external danger, no matter how valiant and momentarily effective it may be, perpetuates merely the endless repetition of the same non-thinking responses. It also precludes intelligent adaptation to new situations or the recognition and prevention of calamities which have their actual source in man's own nature or his inadequate social systems and concepts. Conrad and Hesse agree that thus far in history the vast majority of men have not conceived of themselves as 176 the cause of much of the adversity that befalls them but rather insist on remaining unaware and on pretending that there is no darkness behind the protective facade of their daily routine. While Conrad accepts this situation as the natural state of affairs which only a few extraordinary men can escape at great cost to themselves, Hesse foresees a general awakening spearheaded by intellectuals who have achieved individuation and committed themselves to the furtherance of their fellow men. The road to truth, in the fiction of both Conrad and Hesse, leads inward. For like so many great moralists, both authors believe that true humanity depends on self- knowledge and that man must know his capacity for evil before he can intelligently relate to it or to the opposite ethical relative, the good. And only the more preceptive among the protagonists of Conrad and Hesse come to recog­ nize evil as the force that thrusts them into a state of disharmony and acts as a hidden good in compelling them to seek a transcendent restoration of balance. Conrad be­ lieves that man can do little more in'life than gain such knowledge. However, those who attain it in his fiction do so mainly by recognizing the common core of primordial darkness within all men. This dreadful knowledge of the Kurtz within themselves is then generally paid for by losing all the glorious illusions and self-deceptions of 177 the uninitiated and by having to assume a separate moral identity apart from the vast majority of men who cannot or dare not live in the light of truth. Yet it is precisely their insight which makes such characters superior to the less developed and induces them to be compassionate and to respect the psychological needs of others. This is why Stein recognizes and supports Jim's need for the illusions that give him a sense of purpose in life, why Marlow refrains from telling Kurtz' fiancee the truth about her beloved and gives her "something to live with." This is why even Heyst realizes that Lena's concept of their rela­ tionship gives her the strength to die courageously. On the other hand, those who are deprived of the illusion of their goodness or superiority, like the count in Conrad's "II Conde," or Captain Brierly in Lord Jim, often lose their moral support and their desire to go on living. In this category also belong, of course, such Hessean char­ acters as Hans Giebenrath and Herr Klein, the protagonist of "Klein and V/agner." But while to Conrad the attainment of self- knowledge is a strictly personal matter or at best a justi­ fication for his artistic creed, Hesse sees in it a moral imperative with universal implications. To Hesse each individual has the duty to grow as far toward maturity and true humanity as he possibly can, and if this endeavor 178 makes him an outsider in a stagnant society then he should have the courage to accept his fate, or perhaps, even de­ rive a purpose for his life from it. Many protagonists in the fiction of Hesse play this role and, in one way or other, emerge as bringers of new tablets of the law which transcend conventional concepts of good and evil. And even though such characters may not differ greatly in their degree of psychological development from their counterparts in the fiction of Conrad, they are not merely individuals who have advanced beyond the level of the common herd but literally "new men," prototypes of a new humanity to come. Hesse, then, displays in this respect an idealism and a missionary spirit that is totally absent from the fiction of Conrad. The quest for self-knowledge and meaning in life which propels many major characters in the works of Conrad and Hesse is, of course, generally a conscious and deliber­ ate endeavor. But while in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," "The Secret Sharer," and The Shadow Line the quest-motif is skillfully woven into a stylistically intricate realistic surface story and remains relatively unobtrusive, it is obviously the dominant theme in Hesse's Demian, Steppenwolf, and The Journey to the East. In all of these works self- knowledge is finally the result of psychological integra­ tion. But since integration leads to relative freedom from 179 established social codes and public morality, those who attain it must assume greater ethical responsibility, for they become sole authorities for themselves in what may then seem an absurd world. Both authors agree therefore that the major problem the integrated personality faces is his need to find and maintain a new equilibrium and new meaningful personal relations, but they suggest different ways of how this is to be achieved. Conrad proclaims that to find stability and meaning the self must be employed in relation to something in the objective world, despite the fact that to those who have come to see life for what it really is all human endeavor seems ultimately futile. Throughout his work he calls for personal commitment to a concrete task in the world, for perfect personal integrity, for fidelity, for compassion and even for love. To Conrad adherence to such virtues is man's only armor in his struggle in an essentially unethical universe; it is the only v/ay in which man can gain at least some dignity in his foredoomed struggle. Hesse, on the other hand, remains committed to his belief in an essentially benevolent uni­ verse and in the perfectibility of man. Like Conrad he emphasizes the need not only for attaining self-knowledge through the integration of all antagonistic elements in human nature but also for applying this new awareness in socially responsible action. But while to Hesse the 180 achievement of psychological integration and the assumption of personal responsibility are a basic prerequisite for characters like Knecht in The Glass Bead Game, who are at least potentially capable of leading mankind to a better and saner future, to Conrad, who does not believe that man can be improved collectively, this is strictly a personal achievement and an end in itself. And if Hesse's belief in the possibility of the spiritual evolution of man implies his assumption that this process moves according to a divine plan, Conrad agrees with him that some sort of evolutionary force exists which aims at bringing man to a greater dimension of awareness. But he differs from Hesse in that he displays no faith in it and relegates it to the role of one of many forces blindly operative in the universe. While Conrad, then, portrays his protagonists as tragic heroes stubbornly engaged in deriving at least some personal significance and honorable terms in their unequal struggle in the universe, Hesse's main characters are engaged in promoting the union of mankind in the face of the unknown and derive a sense of purpose from at least the possibility that they share in God's work. Nevertheless, Hesse does not offer this endeavor as a panacea, and there is no guarantee of success. l8l In the works of both authors all preformulated concepts of good and evil based on the Judeo-Christian dichotomy of man and the universe into diametrically opposed and irreconcilable opposites are finally rejected in favor of relative ethical values which depend on a given char­ acter's state of individuation and his commitment to the world. WORKS CITED

Andreas, Osborn. Joseph Conrad; A Study in Non-Conformity. New York, 1962. Baines, Jocelyn. Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography. New York, i960. Ball, Hugo. Hermann Hesse: Seln Leben und Sein Werk. Pra nkfurt/M., 1956. Bancroft, William Wallace. Joseph Conrad: His Philosophy of Life. Boston, 1933. Bantock, G. H. "The Two 'Moralities' of Joseph Conrad," Essays in Criticism, III (April 1953).. 125-142.. Benson, Carl. "Conrad's Two Stories of Initiation," PMLA, LXIX (March 1954), 46-56. Boulby, Mark. Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art. Ithaca, N. Y., 1967. Bradbrook, M. C. Joseph Conrad: Poland's English Genius. Cambridge, Mass., 1941. Brashers, H. C. "Conrad, Marlow and Gautama Buddha: On Structure.and Theme in Heart of Darkness," Conradiana, I, Summer (1969)} 63-72. . Clark, Robert A. Six Talks on Jungian Psychology. Pitts­ burgh, 1953. Cohn, Hilde D. "The Symbolic End of Herman Hesse's Glas- perlenspiel," Modern Language Quarterly, II . (September 1950), 347-357. Conrad, Joseph. Complete Works. The Canterbury Edition. 26 vols. New York, 1924. Daiches, David. The Novel and the Modern World. Chicago, i960. Evans, Robert 0. "Conrad's Underworld," Modern Fiction Studies, II (May 1956), 56-62. .

182 183 Farquharson, R. H. "The Identity and Significance of Leo in Hesse's Morgenlandfahrt," Monatshefte, LV (March 1963), 122-128. Feder, Lillian. "Marlow's Descent Into Hell," Nineteenth Century Fiction, IX (March 1955), 280-292. Fickert, Kurt J. "The Development of the Outsider Concept in Hesse's.Novels," Monatshefte, LII (April-May i960), 171-178. Flaxman, Seymour L. "Per Steppenwolf: Hesse 1s Portrait of the Intellectual,11 Modern Language Quarterly, XV (1954), 3^9-358. . Fleishman, Avron. Conrad's Politics. Baltimore, Md., 1967. Freedman, Ralph. The Lyrical Novel. Princeton, N. J., 1963. Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, trans. Jean Riviere. New York, 1957- Garnett, Edward. Letters from Joseph Conrad, 1895-1924. Ind ianapolis, 1928. Gnefkow, Edmund. Hermann Hesse Biographie 1952. Freiburg, 1952. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust, Part I, ed. R. M. S. Heffner, Helmut Rehder and W. F. Tv/addell. Boston, 1954. Guerard, Albert J. Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge, Mass., 1958. Halle, Louis J., Jr. "Joseph Conrad, An Enigma Decoded," Saturday Review of Literature, May 22, 1948, pp..

Haugh, Robert F. Joseph Conrad: Discovery in Design. Norman, Okla., 1957- . "The Structure of Lord Jim," College English, XIII (December 1951), 137-141.- Hesse, Hermann. Gesammelte Schriften. 7 vols. Frankfurt/ M., 1957. 184

Hesse, Hermann. Krieg und Frieden. Frankfurt/M., 19^5.

Hewitt, Douglas. "The Secret Sharer," in The Art of Joseph Conrad; A. Critical Symposium, ed. R. W. Stallman. Lansing, Mich., 1950. Jacobi, Jolande. The Psychology of Jung. London, 194-9. Jean-Aubry, Gerard. Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters. 2 vols. Garden City, N. Y., 1S27. Johnson, Sidney M. "The Autobiographies in Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," German Quarterly, XXIX (May 1955^150^1717 . Jung, C. G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York, 1959. . The Practice of Psychotherapy, trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York, 1954. Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York, 1952. . Symbols of Transformation, trans. R. F. C. Hull. New York, 195b. Two Essays on Analytical Ps:ychology, trans. R. F. C. Hull. Nev/ York, 1953. Levin, Gerald. "The Scepticism of Harlow," Twentieth Century Literature, III (January 19537* 177-184. Lorch, Thomas M. "The Barrier Between Youth and Maturity in the Works of Joseph Conrad," Modern Fiction Studies, X, Spring (1964), 73-80. Low, Anthony. "Heart of Darkness: The Search for an Occupation," English Literature in Transition, XII (1969), 2-8. Meyer, Bernard C. Joseph Conrad: A Psychoanalytical . Biography. Princeton, N. J., 19o7. Mileck, Josech. Hermann Hesse and His Critics. Nev; York, 1966. . "Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," University of California Publications in Modem Philology, XXXVI (1952), 243-270. 185 Mileclc, Joseoh. "Names and the Creative Process," Monats- hefte, LIII (April-May 19ol), 167-180. . "The Prose of Hermann Hesse: Life, Substance, and.Form," German Quarterly, XXVII (May 1954), 166-180. . 1 Moser, Thomas. Joseph Conrad: Achievement and Decline. Cambridge, Mass., 1957• Negus, Kenneth. "On the Death of Joseph Knecht in Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel," Monatshefte, LIII (April- May 1961), ibi-iag. . Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother, trans. Ralph Manheim. New York, 1954. The Origins and History of Consciousness, trans. R. P. C. Hull. New York, 1954. Puppe, Heinz. "Psychologie und My stile in Klein und Wagner von Hermann Hesse," PMLA, LXXVIII (March 15^3J, 128-135. Rose, Ernst. Faith From the Abyss. New York, 1955. Schwarz, Egon. "Zur Erklarung von Hesses Steppenwolf," Monatshefte, LIII -(April-May 19S1), 191-19U. Seidlin, Oscar. "Hermann Hesse: The Exorcism of the Demon," Symposium, IV (November 1950), 325-343. Sper, Felix. "The Cream of Conrad," Poet Lore, XXXVIII, Autumn.(1927), 422-425. Stein, William B. "Buddhism and 'Heart of Darkness,'" Western Humanities Review, XI, Summer (1957),-28l- _g__

Thale, Jerome. "Marlow's Quest," University of Toronto Quarterly, XXIV (July 1955), 351-358. Van Ghent, Dorothy. The English Novel: Form and Function. New York, 190I. Watt, Ian. "Story and Idea in Conrad's The Shadow Line," Critical Quarterly, II, Slimmer (i960), 134-148. .

Wiley, Paul L. Conrad's Measure of Man. New York, 1966. 186

Williams, Porter. "The Brand of Cain in 'The Secret Sharer,'" Modern Fiction Studies, X, Spring (1964), 27-30., . Wills, John Howard. "Adam, Axel, and 'II Conde,'" Modern Fiction Studies, I (February 1955), 22-25.

Wilson, Colin. The Outsider. Boston, 1965. Wright, Walter F. Romance and Tragedy in Joseph Conrad. Lincoln, Neb., 1949. Zabel, Morton Dauwen. "Conrad In His Age," The New Republic, Nov. 16, 1942, pp. 567-568, 570-574. , ed. The portable Conrad. Nevf York, 1959. Zeller, Bernhard. Hermann Hesse In Selbstzeugnlssen und Bllddokument'en. Reinbeck bei Hamburg, 1963 • Ziolkowski, Theodore. "Hermann Hesse's Chiliastic Vision," Monatshefte, LIII (April-May 1961), 199-210. The Novels of Hermann Hesse. Princeton, N. J., 1965.